1587 Prime accused of bait-and-switch by local vendor: ‘Misleading customers’
Until Monday morning, when The Star inquired, the 1587 Prime website listed Betty Rae’s ice cream and Shatto Milk Company among its local partners.
And Matt Shatto, who owns both companies, said he’s been hearing for months that servers at Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce’s splashy new Crossroads steakhouse have been telling customers that the butter on the table is made by Shatto Milk and the ice cream is courtesy of Betty Rae’s.
Problem is, Shatto says, it’s not.
1587 Prime hasn’t served Shatto butter since its pre-opening events back in early September. And the restaurant cut ties with Betty Rae’s in October, after 1587 Prime management asked Betty Rae’s to lower its wholesale prices to a level that wouldn’t have been profitable.
“We’ve been trying for months to get them to remove our name from the menu and stop telling customers they’re serving our products,” Shatto said. “It diminishes our brand when you have a restaurant using some national co-op’s butter, or whoever they’re now using, while saying it’s Shatto.”
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Operated by Miami hospitality group Noble 33, 1587 Prime is located inside the Loews Kansas City Hotel at 1500 Baltimore Ave. The restaurant said in a statement to The Star that it updated its website Monday to reflect current local vendors.
“Our team is constantly sourcing the highest quality ingredients for the most favorable pricing,” 1587 Prime’s statement said. “Unfortunately, it isn’t always viable to continue carrying a specific product, whether based on pricing, consistency issues, or other factors.”
1587 Prime and Shatto Milk Company
Shatto said he was approached a few months before 1587 Prime’s opening by Scavuzzo’s, a Kansas City distributor that has served as a liaison between 1587 Prime and its local purveyors.
Through Scavuzzo’s, Shatto said, his companies struck an agreement alongside other local vendors — including Farm to Market Bread and McLain’s Bakery — to supply products to the restaurant, with Scavuzzo’s handling distribution.
In September, 1587 Prime held several media previews and friends-and-family soft openings, during which Shatto said his butter and ice cream were featured and promoted to guests.
But within the restaurant’s first week of opening to the public, Shatto said he received a call informing him that 1587 Prime had decided to stop using Shatto butter.
“The reason given was price,” Shatto said. “I thought that was kind of weird that they would drop us so quickly, but that’s their business decision to make.”
Shatto said the remaining supply of unused butter was retrieved from the restaurant shortly afterward.
“There’s absolutely no way they could be serving Shatto butter,” he said. “We went in and picked it all up that first week they were open.”
1587 Prime did not respond to repeated questions from The Star about where it has sourced its butter since opening.
“My feeling is that they’re intentionally misleading customers by using these local connections to their benefit in marketing the restaurant,” Shatto said. “It’s almost like they want to be able to say they use local products, then pull out of the relationship but keep local names on the menu anyway.”
Betty Rae’s
Though Shatto’s butter deal with 1587 Prime ended early, Betty Rae’s continued supplying ice cream to the restaurant.
After a month, though, Shatto says the restaurant through Scavuzzo’s asked several of its local providers to lower their prices.
Shatto declined.
“We’re selling them our ice cream for less than a dollar a scoop, and they’re turning around and selling it for $9 a scoop,” Shatto said. “It felt like too much to ask of us, especially since our business isn’t reliant on selling ice cream to 1587 Prime. I just felt like I didn’t want to be pushed around by these guys just because they think they have enough brand equity to come in and demand even lower prices from local folks.”
1587 Prime confirmed in late October that it would no longer place orders from Betty Rae’s, Shatto said. He said Betty Rae’s final delivery to Scavuzzo’s on Sept. 23 included three flavors of ice cream and a strawberry basil sorbet. Because that order went to the distributor — not directly to the restaurant — it is theoretically possible that 1587 Prime continued drawing from that inventory well into the fall.
That is the explanation the restaurant has offered for the sorbet. It provided The Star a redacted invoice showing a distributor delivered three gallons of Betty Rae’s strawberry basil sorbet last week, on Jan. 8.
Shatto said it was possible that sorbet from the September order had remained with Scavuzzo’s and that the January delivery reflected the last of that inventory.
But he said that explanation strains credulity when it comes to the ice cream. Based on the restaurant’s first month of sales, Shatto said, 1587 Prime was moving through Betty Rae’s ice cream far too quickly for any supply from late September to still be available by November.
“We don’t believe there’s any plausible way they have any of our ice cream based on the amounts they were going through,” Shatto said. “It’d be almost four months old by now. I don’t know what kind of ice cream they’re serving there.”
Steve Scavuzzo, owner of Scavuzzo’s, did not respond to a request for comment.
1587 Prime did not respond directly to questions about who its current ice cream supplier is, or whether servers were still being instructed to tell guests that the butter is Shatto and the ice cream is Betty Rae’s.
But that message was still being conveyed to diners as recently as November. In a December review published by the website Defector, local food writer Liz Cook said the restaurant told her the ice cream was Betty Rae’s.
Other local partners
Other local food and beverage partners said their relationships with 1587 Prime have been largely routine.
“We have a great working relationship with 1587,” said Jeff Hirleman, co-owner of McLain’s Bakery, which supplies desserts to the restaurant.
John Friend, president of Farm to Market Bread Co., said the restaurant approached him in the fall — around the same time Shatto said he was asked to cut prices.
“They did ask us for better pricing, which is pretty typical,” Friend said. “We’re still selling to 1587 with no problems on our end. It has been a great account for us.”
David Epstein, president of Tom’s Town Distilling Co., which wholesales spirits to 1587 Prime, said his company had not been asked to lower prices.
“But they’re not a very big account for us,” Epstein said. “I’m hoping it grows. My understanding is that we’re on their martini cart, but not on their current drink list.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2026 at 10:58 AM.
