Iconic Kansas City restaurant, a Northland favorite, is reopening soon
After a car crashed into a restaurant in Kansas City’s Northland in January — temporarily shutting it down and injuring the owner — there’s good news for fans.
The location at 8174 NW Prairie View Road is coming back, bringing its signature tacos with it.
In-A-Tub is celebrating its grand reopening Saturday, April 25, at 11 a.m. The restaurant’s owner is recovering and plans to attend.
The company will have two active locations again. It’s still been serving its deep-fried tacos with neon orange powdered cheese at the 4000 N. Oak Trafficway location.
In-A-Tub has been a staple in the Northland since the 1950s, started by Marion and Walt Carpenter. Marion developed the menu and added the inventive tacos, a Mexican-Italian hybrid. Burgers are also a popular item on the menu.
Aaron Beeman now owns In-A-Tub, and his sister and brother-in-law, Andrea and Kip LaMunyon, own the Prairie View Road spot, which they’ve had for more than 20 years.
The LaMunyons’ location was maimed in January when a Ford F150 collided into the restaurant. The driver pulled into the parking spot adjacent to the business, then suddenly accelerated, according to the Kansas City Police Department.
Kip said the truck came all the way through the interior and hit Andrea. She was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. “We’re lucky she’s still here,” Kip said.
A GoFundMe was made for Andrea, and hundreds of messages on Facebook showed support.
“As a life long customer my dad introduced us to the original location,” one user wrote. “Your family is all of our family. Praying she makes a full recovery.”
“Prayers, everyone head to the N. Oak location to show your love. Let’s show how much the Tub means to this city,” someone else wrote at the time of the accident.
In the months since, the restaurant has been posting updates of construction at the restaurant. One showed Andrea in a wheelchair in front of the patched-up hole on the side of the building.
“Today was a big day. It was Andrea’s first time back at the scene of the accident,” the restaurant wrote. “This was very emotional, but also a moment of triumph from where we were on January 20th.” Andrea is continuing to recover but isn’t back to full mobility just yet. She’s waiting to hear from her doctors on whether some of her injuries are permanent.
Still, she’s looking forward to the reopening. She’s not shying away from working in the restaurant, despite everything.
“It’ll be nice to be back, a part of the community again,” she said.
She can hardly believe the endless messages of support she’s received throughout her months of recovery. Fans tell her they’re eager for In-A-Tub to return.
When Andrea’s daughter was writing the restaurant’s reopening date on the windows, passersby stopped in the parking lot for the big reveal.
“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty cool,’” Andrea said.