A guide to 19 of Kansas City’s oldest restaurants: Their food, families, staying power

The Kansas City area can boast more than 30 restaurants that have been around for at least five decades. Here’s a guide to 19 of them.

Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque

Founded: Around 1907

Location: 1727 Brooklyn Ave.

Best known for: Burnt ends and ribs

The Rauschelbach family has owned Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque since 1982 (the Bryant family owns the building).

But when people tell Jerry Rauschelbach, 60, how great it must be to own the legendary spot, he says: “Oh, you don’t own Arthur Bryant’s. It owns me.”

“We just use food to pay our bills but we are in the people business,” he said. “When out-of-towners come in, if you got one place to go, just one, we are right up there in the one, two or three just because of its originality. It’s such a special place.”

It traces its roots to “Barbecue King” Henry Perry, who set up a barbecue stand in the Garment District shortly after arriving in Kansas City in 1907.

Charlie Bryant was his protege. Then his brother Arthur came up from Texas to visit and never left. Perry put him on the payroll.

Perry died and Charlie took over. When Charlie retired in 1946 it was Arthur’s turn. He had his own ideas.

After moving into the current location in early 1959, he rebranded under his own name, and he cut the cayenne pepper.

“Old man Perry and my brother made it too hot. You could tell it by the way people frowned. … Now it’s a pleasure,” he once said. “I make it so you can put it on bread and eat it.”

In 1974, journalist and Kansas City native Calvin Trillin pronounced it the “single best restaurant in the world” in a magazine piece. Since then presidents and celebrities have made pilgrimages to the brick building. The black-and-white photos now line a wall, entertaining customers as they wait in the quick-moving line. Some days it stretches out the door and down the sidewalk.

Customers put their heaping plates of meat on Formica-topped tables with plastic squeeze bottles of sauce at the ready.

Arthur called his place a grease house and never wanted to upgrade. But he did put in air conditioning.

Rauschelbach is looking at changing the dining room a bit this winter, but he worries just how much. He agrees with Bryant’s philosophy: “You don’t get fancy with a barbecue. When you get fancy, you get out of line,” Bryant once said.

Secret to success: “We’re just a little grease joint in the ’hood and I’m OK with that,” Rauschelbach says. “Nothing fancy. You get what you get when you got what you got decades ago.”

KC Black History: Who were the pioneers who made here the ‘BBQ capital of the world’?

Browne’s Irish Marketplace

Location: 3300 Pennsylvania Ave.

Year founded: 1887

Best known for: Reubens with cold pints of Guinness.

The Irish imports shop and deli got its start in 1887. Ed and Mary Flavin, immigrants from County Kerry in Ireland, set up a Flavin’s Market at 27th and Jefferson streets, in front of the family home. Their daughter, Margaret, married Jim Browne, also from County Kerry, who became the second owner. Now it is owned by the fourth generation. Youngsters and young adults in the fifth and sixth generations also fill in.

Customers can buy T-shirts that boast of its longevity: “Browne’s. The oldest Irish business outside of Ireland.”

They wander the old oak floors through a maze of rooms packed with merchandise: thick wool sweaters from Irish mills that have been operating for centuries, tweed vests and caps, Irish teas and chocolates, hand-painted driftwood made in County Kerry and Celtic jewelry. The cafe offers Reubens, turkey clubs, BLTs, Irish potato soup, housemade cookies, Irish breakfasts and more.

Secret to success: “I think we have adapted with the times,” said Kerry Browne, fourth generation co-owner. “The neighborhood has changed, what our customers want to eat, drink, listen to or buy, we are constantly changing to make it the right fit for them and for us.”

Cascone’s Italian Restaurant

Location: 3733 N. Oak Trafficway. (Another family member owns the Johnny Cascone’s Italian Restaurant in Overland Park.)

Year founded: 1932

Best known for: The Italian Flag, a trio of baked lasagna, chicken parmigiana and creamy fettuccine Alfredo. A paper Italian flag with a wooden pick garnishes the lasagna.

The Cascone family traces its roots to Ragusa, near the southern coast of Sicily.

George Cascone first opened Cascone’s in Columbus Park in 1932, using longtime family recipes. It was known then, as now, for its Italian steak sandwiches. His son, John, took over in the late 1940s after returning from World War II. He called it Cascone’s Band Box, and relocated to the River Market. His brother, Sam, took over, and John bought a roadhouse on North Oak Trafficway in 1954, later remodeling and adding a cocktail lounge.

When John died of a stroke at age 45 in 1961, his brother ran the Northland restaurant until he died two years later of a heart attack.

John’s oldest son, George, was at college, and his 17-year-old son, Frank, was headed there. Instead, Frank took over the restaurant in 1963 to support his mother and four younger siblings. As the siblings grew, they started working at the restaurant.

The family put up a new building on the north side of the property in 1980 and tore down the roadhouse for parking. It is now owned and operated by a third generation of siblings — Frank, Jimmy and Lucille Cascone — and some fourth generation family members also work there, including manager Jenny Ann Arena, Frank’s daughter.

Secret to success: “We watch over the preparation of all food items and we really are strict in the preparation and ingredients,” Jimmy Cascone says. “We don’t allow any variations. That’s what we strive for.”

Dixon’s Famous Chili

Location: 9105 E. U.S. 40 highway, Independence.

Year founded: 1919

Best known for: “The chili is supposed to be our staple but tacos are really close, they’ve become really popular,” said general manager Stephen Steffes, great-great-nephew of founder Vergne Dixon.

Flashing red neon signs — “Since 1919” — broadcast the 103-year history to the lanes of traffic speeding by on U.S. 40 highway.

Vergne Dixon first sold his chili from a street cart before opening a brick-and-mortar Dixon’s Chili Parlor at 15th and Olive streets in 1919. There were 13 locations in its heyday.

In 1949, Hensley Coffee proudly proclaimed that Dixon’s Chili served its coffee, along with many more including Hooper’s Cafe and Yu-All Drive-In. Those restaurants are long gone.

In 1951, a New York columnist said its chili con carne was “downright spiritual with us who long since sat on the high stools … and on $25 a week got by from pay-day to pay-day, well-fed and well-content.”

A favorite of President Harry S. Truman, Dixon’s chili comes in three styles (juicy, soupy with bean broth, or dry), a variety of “fixins” including onion, grated cheese, jalapeno relish and sour cream, and a choice of “plates” such as a tamale covered with chili beans and meat; beans covered with meat; and spaghetti with chili meat and beans.

Secret to success: Steffes said it comes down to the chili. “It’s a unique product that you can’t get anywhere else, and we are super fast. You can come in, eat on china, and be out in 20 minutes,” said Steffes, who is purchasing the restaurant from his mother, Terri Smith, great-niece of Vergne.

Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant

Locations: Crown Center, 2450 Grand Blvd. (multiple locations)

Year founded: 1954

Best known for: The toy trains and The Gen Dare, a single hamburger topped with hash browns, grilled onions, melted cheese, ketchup, mustard and pickle on a seeded bun, named after founder Virginia Kropf.

Fritz and Virginia Kropf first opened Fritz’s Drive-In at 32nd Street and Brown Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas, adding a second location on 18th Street in 1967. Kropf came up with a unique toy train food delivery system while tinkering in his KCK basement.

The trains were installed on an overhead wooden monorail at the 18th Street location in the 1970s, and it was dubbed Fritz’s Union Station.

But the wooden tracks occasionally dumped a tray of food on an unwary customer, and stainless steel was substituted.

Decades later, children are still wide-eyed — some standing up in their booths for a better look — as flashing red lights and trumpeting train whistles signal their orders are on the way.

The couple had five children who all worked in the restaurants, but the youngest, Fred, was willing to put in the long hours. The original location closed in 1972, but Fred and his wife, Mary, purchased the 18th Street location in 1987. They opened in the Crown Center Shops in 1999 (when they began using the Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant name so as not to be confused with the nearby Union Station) and added a Shawnee restaurant in late 2009.

“Someone will come in and tell me they remember my grandfather, John, at John’s Place at 22nd and Quindaro. He would be behind the counter cooking, and hamburgers were a nickel,” Fred said. “They would say, ‘So we can get six for a quarter?’ He would say, ‘No, but you can get seven for 35 cents.’ They wouldn’t do the math.”

Secret to success: “It is unique … because of the delivery system, and the food is good as well. It is not an expensive dine out, it’s not a cheap dine out, but affordable. Foodertainment,” Fred Kropf said.

Gates Bar-B-Q

Location: 1325 Emanuel Cleaver II Blvd. (multiple locations)

Year founded: 1946

Best known for: They specialize in ribs, but burnt ends are the top order.

George Gates purchased Ol’ Kentuck Bar-B-Q — when it was more of an after-hours jazz joint — in 1946. Customers would bring in their whiskey bottles and it would provide the set-ups — glasses, ice and mixers. But his wife, Arzelia, didn’t like that kind of carrying on, says their son Ollie. So the couple standardized their recipe of the pitmaster’s “a pinch of this, a pinch of that.” They started promoting it as a barbecue restaurant called Gates Ol’ Kentuck Bar-B-Q.

Ollie Gates worked there before earning a building construction degree from Lincoln University and then joining the U.S. Army. When he was discharged in 1956 he planned a construction career. But his father promised to change the name to Gates & Son’s if Ollie came to work for him. Later George would threaten to take the “son” off the sign if he got irritated with Ollie.

Customers are met with the loud and iconic “Hi, may I help you” greeting as they walk in the door — with some describing it as “aggressive hospitality.” But Gates said that the well-run ordering system comes from his military training. It’s also why he insisted on clean, modern dining rooms and spotless uniforms, when others still stuck to the old grease house image.

As for his dream of a construction career, he was able to pursue that when building the five area Gates restaurants.

Secret to success: “It’s the product, what else? The product carries our business. We make a good, honest, old-fashioned product,” Gates said.

Jasper’s Italian Restaurant

Location: 1201 W. 103rd St.

Year founded: 1954

Best known for: Capelli d’Angelo alla Nanni (angel hair pasta tossed in a tomato and basil cream sauce with prosciutto, mushrooms and peas).

In 1954, Leonardo and Josephine Mirabile and their son, Jasper and his wife, Josephine, opened Rose’s Bar, a neighborhood Italian restaurant and bar at 75th Street and Wornall Road.

The first menu offered a 79-cent, three-course meal, and they soon changed the name to Jasper’s. By 1968, servers donned tuxedos and put on tableside shows preparing Caesar salad and cherries jubilee. Male customers were required to wear suit jackets (it is more casual now).

The Mirabiles added the laid-back Marco Polo’s Italian Market, a carryout and eat-in deli and grocery operation, in 1984.

After selling the land to Walgreens in 1997, they moved to their current spot in south Kansas City. Jasper’s sons, Leonard and Jasper Mirabile Jr., are the owners.

Secret to success: “Our key to success is MITH — a Mirabile in the house,” said Jasper Mirabile Jr. “There is never a time where there is not a Mirabile in the restaurant, and most of the time there are four to five of us here, weekends especially. People know the food has been checked, they’re going to have a nice atmosphere and a nice dinner. I want to keep it going another 68 years.”

Jess & Jim’s Steak House

Location: 517 E. 135th St.

Year founded: 1938

Best known for: All 10 cuts of steak are equally popular and many customers buy them to take home and grill.

Best friends Jess Kincaid and Jim Wright opened a bar and grill at 135th Street and Holmes Road in April 1938. Kincaid soon moved to California, so Jim hired his cousin, R.C. Van Noy, to host and manage the dining room.

The May 1957 Ruskin Heights F5 tornado demolished that location (it’s now a Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue). But some customers were more worried about its pet parrot — who often chimed in with some salty language (it was found a few months later).

Van Noy bought the current building, which had a soda shop on the first floor and roller rink on the second, and partnered with Wright. Photos in the lobby show the tornado’s damage to the intersection.

While it was far south of the Kansas City city limits at the time, they decided “good food, good service and fair prices,” would be a draw.

In 1972, Trillin said it was one of the country’s best steakhouses in a piece he wrote for Playboy. Jess & Jim’s pays homage to that article with its 25-ounce “of pure beef goodness” Playboy steak.

Secret to success: “We live at the restaurant, we sleep at our house. And we have great people — employees and customers — they are like family,” said Mike Van Noy Sr., operator who owns the restaurant with his brother, David. David operates their sister restaurant, RC’s Restaurant & Lounge, a fried chicken place nearby, founded in 1973.

Los Corrals

Year founded: 1949

Location: 408 W. Ninth St.

Best known for: Deep-fried tacos (beef, bean or chicken)

Founded in 1949 at 520 W. 14th St., its name was inspired by the historic Kansas City stockyards just down the hill in the West Bottoms.

In early 1964 it moved to its current spot just west of Broadway, offering “a little of Old Mexico in downtown Kansas City,” according to its newspaper advertisements at the time.

Los Corrals started in one room in the circa 1889 building and has since expanded to several rooms — decorated with art from local Hispanic artists, Mexican artifacts, vintage neon signs, and a wall of brightly covered redeemed Los Corrals margarita cards — Buy nine margaritas and get a complimentary 10th margarita.

Secret to success: “Los Corrals is more than just a restaurant. A lot of memories were made here and generations of families come in, a lot of first dates,” said Steve Neal, who purchased the restaurant in March 2012. “We’ve been able to keep those special moments alive. And our food is really good and unique. We serve our sauce like no other — warm.”

Paul & Jack’s Tavern

Location: 1808 Clay St., North Kansas City

Year founded: 1948

Best known for: “World Famous Chili.” Founder Paul Dunbar’s wife came up with the meat-based, dry chili with no tomatoes but a layer of beans. A bottle of pepper vinegar is set on the side of the plate. Customers eat it year-round, even during sweltering summer days.

This spot, on a quiet block just off bustling Burlington Street in North Kansas City, was founded by brothers Paul and Jack Dunbar in 1948. They offered a limited menu, mostly hamburgers, hot dogs and chili. It has since doubled in size, adding the Hornet’s Nest in honor of North Kansas City High School’s mascot— a favorite room for alumni. Then it doubled again with a large dining room and central bar. It also has a large patio with a stage and party deck.

Brandi Smithmier worked for the previous two owners before buying the restaurant and bar in 2019 with her husband, Bill Arrington.

“If I was going to work there another 15 years it might as well be as an owner,” she said. When customers ask if she is Paul or Jack she says, “It depends on the day.”

The menu now includes specialty burgers, chicken fried chicken, grilled tilapia fillets, deep-fried catfish, and more including that chili, “same recipe for over 70 years!”

Secret to success: “We have a lot of good regulars who have been coming for years and made it a staple of their lives. We have a good atmosphere with a neighborhood bar and grill feel.”

The Peanut on Main

Year founded: 1933

Location: 5000 Main St. (multiple locations)

Best known for: It used to be the BLTs but the huge chicken wings have become equally popular.

The Peanut professes to be “Kansas City’s oldest bar and grill.”

One newspaper story has the Peanut selling beer in August 1933, during Prohibition, maybe giving it its speakeasy reputation. A dime bought a 32-ounce beer in a fishbowl glass.

In 1951, founder Louis Stone was looking to lease the kitchen to a “responsible chef with barbecue experience.” The menu later included barbecue ribs, ham and beef, and Big Boy sandwiches (beef, sauerkraut, barbecue sauce and cheese).

Peanut shells covered the floor back when peanuts were given away. A pet myna bird, a restaurant mascot, is said to be buried in the basement.

After Stone died in 1966, his brother-in-law took over. It had other local owners before the fourth owners, Melinda and the late Rich Kenny, purchased it in 1980.

Melinda Kenny saw a recipe in The Star for Buffalo chicken wings around 1990.

“I thought that would be fun to do, but we created our own recipe,” she said. “We didn’t have fryers, just electric skillets, and we didn’t put them on the menu, it was just word-of-mouth. People would just wait forever for them.”

New fryers helped them keep up with demand, and the wings drew customers from the greater metro.

Secret to success: “We’ve always been a neighborhood bar,” Kenny said. “It’s just always been a destination.” Another key to its longevity is its location just south of the popular Plaza and the strong support from neighbors, neighboring residents, she said.

Rosedale Bar-B-Q

Location: 600 Southwest Blvd., Kansas City, Kansas.

Year founded: 1934

Best known for: Combo sandwiches (choice of two meats: ham, turkey, sliced or pulled pork, burnt ends, sausage, pulled chicken or chopped beef) and crinkle-cut fries

Its roots date to The Bucket Shop, founded on the Fourth of July in 1934 as a hot dog and beer (half-gallon bucket for 25 cents) stand.

A year later the partners — Anthony and Alda Rieke, and Alda’s brother, Anthony Sieleman — pooled their savings ($183) and started a barbecue stand nearby with only nine seats.

The Riekes’ daughter, Janelle Brown, and her husband, Phil, are the current owners. Their daughter, Marisha Smith and her husband, Bill, operate the barbecue.

It has been featured in such publications at The New Yorker and Bon Appetit, along with the Travel Channel.

Secret to success: They’ve thrived for decades by “offering a quality product at a fair and competitive price as you possibly can,” Marisha Smith said.

The Savoy at 21c

Location: 219 W. Ninth St.

Year founded: 1903

Best known for: Campo Lindo Farms chicken with spring onion, Yukon Gold potato, prune and pork.

The original five-story building went up in 1888, and a six-story addition a year later. The Savoy Grill opened in 1903, making it one of the oldest Kansas City restaurants still in its original location.

It was known as a “man’s restaurant” with a menu of beef, seafood and game.

It went dark for 10 days during Prohibition, but waiters were said to chip in funds to help the owners reopen.

When a new owner took over in 1960, he said the restaurant had “old world charm.” It expanded with more dining rooms and tried to keep all the menu items under $5, then $10, then $20.

21c Museum Hotel closed it for a major remodeling in 2018. It reopened as The Savoy at 21c: Restaurant + Bar. But the contemporary look was not a hit with customers so that part was replaced by an art gallery.

The main dining area and bar at the entrance still has that original old world charm with its glossy green brick walls, pioneer murals near the ceiling, stained glass windows and a plaque that identifies Harry S. Truman’s favorite booth, No. 4.

It plans a new menu that will pay homage to the historic menu, as well as being relevant to current Kansas City.

Secret to success:: “It is one of the oldest steak and seafood restaurants in fine dining,” said Taylor Tantillo, director food and beverage. “People have been coming for their 20th anniversary, 30th, 40th. And then some that are staying in the hotel who have never heard of us.”

Steve’s Villa Capri

Location: 10412 Mastin St., Overland Park

Year founded: 1961

Best known for: Villa Capri Special Pizza with Italian sausage, pepperoni, hamburger, green pepper, mushrooms and onions, topped with housemade sauce and a provolone and mozzarella cheese mix. (Anchovies or meatballs are $2.25 extra.)

Anthony “Tony” Scudiero opened the restaurant in downtown Overland Park in 1961 with his brother, but he became sole owner a year later. At one time there were a half dozen locations across the metro, and its tuna pizza was a popular order, along with two 8-ounce lobster tails.

His son, Steve, started washing dishes and busing tables as a 12-year-old. Then he moved up — pizza cook, delivery boy, spaghetti cook and management.

He left to work for casinos here and in Colorado for a dozen years, while occasionally filling in at the restaurant. His mom died and dad had a stroke in 2012, and he took over as owner.

Two years later, Scudiero and his wife, Diana, moved the restaurant to the current location, in what was once a Subway and Goodcents training center.

Windows along the east and south fill the restaurant with natural light. Their church met there for a time — calling it the Church of the Checkered Tablecloths. Scudiero family photos, an Italian flag and a map of Italy line the back hallway.

But now, like many restaurants coming out of the pandemic, they struggle to find enough employees. So the couple run it together with just a dishwasher and server, working four hours at dinner Thursdays through Saturdays.

One of their two sons in the Kansas City restaurant industry and could be the third generation owner one day.

Secret to success: “Consistency, the friendliness, the family atmosphere. A lot of customer service, that’s a big thing,” Scudiero said. “We treat everyone like family.”

Stroud’s Restaurant & Bar

Location: 5410 N.E. Oak Ridge Drive (KC Hopps Ltd. owns and operates locations in Mission and Overland Park.)

Year founded: 1933

Best known for: Pan-fried chicken

Stroud’s — the “home of the pan-fried chicken” — got its start in 1933, right after Prohibition was repealed. That’s when Guy and Helen Stroud opened a barbecue restaurant near 85th Street and Troost Avenue. When beef was rationed during World War II, Helen fried up the more readily available chicken for 35-cent dinners.

In 1977, two bartenders at famed Kelly’s Westport Inn — Jim Hogan and the late Mike Donegan — purchased the roadhouse. They later opened a Northland location in an old log cabin (circa 1829), then expanded to a farmhouse (1840) with Mike’s twin brother, Dennis, as a partner. The original location was forced to close in 2006 to make way for a new bridge and wider road.

Today’s menu includes the pan-fried chicken, gizzards, livers, hot wings, shrimp, salmon, steak, pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and cinnamon rolls.

Secret to success: “It would all go back to Mike and Dennis and their ability to make people feel welcome. And the consistency of the food, great staff and it’s family-friendly,” said Tammy Ruff, general manager, who has been with Stroud’s for 32 years.

Tao Tao Chinese Restaurant

Location: 1300 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.

Year founded: 1972

Best known for: Shrimp fried rice and more recently, Springfield cashew chicken.

In February, Annie Der celebrated her 75th birthday and 50th year owning and operating Tao Tao at the same location less than a mile from downtown Kansas City, Kansas.

Her husband, Wally, worked at numerous restaurants in the Kansas City area and Springfield (where his mentor taught him their famous Springfield cashew chicken recipe, where the chicken is lightly breaded and deep fried). He saved up the $7,000 they needed to open their own place at 1300 Minnesota Ave. Thirteen is his lucky number.

Not much has changed since the opening on Feb. 12, 1972 (two days after Annie’s birthday).

“We are not a fancy restaurant, we are like a hole in the wall. What you can count on is Chef Annie. It’s 50 years now and that’s what you can count on,” said their daughter, Tina Der. “Lots of people serve Chinese food but my mom, she cooks with love. The customers who walk in say ‘Hi, mom.’ It’s like she’s their mom.”

Secret to success: “Hard work. I’m here all the time, I don’t go out,” Annie Der said.

‘Showing of love’: Kansas City, Kansas, community celebrates Tao Tao restaurant chef

Torreon Mexican Restaurant

Location: 9129 Elmhurst Drive, Overland Park

Year opened: 1960

Best known for: Chicken enchilada stack (chili verde and egg layered in a stack of corn tortillas) and “fishbowl margaritas.”

Gus and Betty Ibarra introduced fine Mexican cuisine to Overland Park more than six decades ago as Los Ibarra’s. It was an instant success.

It had 10 tables in a former two-bedroom house on the corner of 79th Street and Metcalf Avenue. The couple had their mothers in the kitchen, using recipes from Gus’ mother, a native of Torreon, Mexico. Their five children helped out, with the youngest, Denice, standing on a milk crate to dry dishes starting when she was 7. Her older sister dried, and their three brothers bused tables before moving up to taking orders.

The Ibarras divorced in the mid-1960s and split up the restaurant operations. Gus opened The Red Bull nearby, serving Mexican cuisine until the late 1970s. Betty opened Torreon in downtown Overland Park in 1967 and relocated to the current spot in 1973.

Denice Ibarra Hamilton, purchased the restaurant from her mother in 1981. Her son Brice Shockley has been doing the prep work for two decades and is the bartender during the dinner service.

The menu still includes burritos, enchiladas, tacos, quesadillas and sopapillas (puffy pastries using house-made dough served with warm honey and sugared cinnamon), along with items that Hamilton added such as pina quesadillas, espinaca dip, chili verde and veggie soft shell tacos.

Secret to success: “We’ve never changed the quantity or quality of the food. People have to wait a little while because everything’s made-to-order. We prepare everything fresh daily. We still mash our beans by hand. That’s why we are not open for lunch,” Hamilton said.

Town Topic

Locations: 2021 Broadway Blvd. and 1900 Baltimore Ave.

Year founded: 1937

Best known for: Burgers and chili

During the Depression, Claude Sparks opened a downtown diner with a few counter seats. Customers could buy a burger for a nickel.

It was so successful that it grew to nine area locations open 24 hours a day. Now it is down to two diners operating three blocks from each other in downtown Kansas City. One is open 24/7.

“Grandpa’s whole idea was to have those on the streetcar stops so that’s why they were so close together,” said Scot Sparks, third-generation owner. “And everyone worked downtown. It was supposed to be a quick get-in-and-get-out setup.”

Claude’s son, Gary (who was born the year Town Topic was founded), started working in the diners when he was young and went full time in the mid-1960s. When Claude died in 1993, he left the business to Gary. Gary’s son, Scot, joined him in 1995 and later purchased the operation.

Customers are still close enough to the griddle to watch their burgers sizzle next to freshly chopped onions, and then served on a steamed bun “like we did back in the day,” Scot Sparks said.

Town Topic was the first customer for L&C Meat company in Independence in 1946, and L&C still grinds the meat and delivers it daily.

Breakfast also is popular — bacon and eggs, biscuits and gravy (made from scratch every morning), hot cakes, cinnamon rolls, french toast and breakfast sandwiches. Other menu items include pork tenderloins, hand-dipped malts, housemade chili, Golden Boy pies and pots of steaming black coffee.

Secret to success: “We just stuck to the values that grandfather started, that my dad carried on and now I carry on,” Scot Sparks said. “Serve the best quality you can and really take care of your staff and your customers.”

V’s Italiano Ristorante

Location: 10819 E. U.S. 40, Independence.

Year opened: 1963

Best known for: Three-cheese lasagna, baked to order

Vita “V” and Jay Totta opened V’s Cafe in Independence with just a seven-stool counter, three tables and four booths. She had a part-time job at a family business and four young children at home, but it was her dream to have a restaurant. The couple later had two more children.

They used family recipes from Vita’s parents, natives of Sicily, and Vita made a point of greeting each customer personally. Three years later, they more than doubled the size of the restaurant in a new site nearby on U.S. 40 highway.

When they needed to expand again, Jay, an architect, designed and built the current restaurant. Vita’s father planted grape vines for the wood arbor over the front garden patio, and the dining room has a similar arbor decor.

The restaurant is now in its third generation, and OpenTable named its Sunday Champagne Brunch as one of the “100 Best Brunch Restaurants in America” in 2017. V’s said there’s a little bit of everything on the menu, such as scrambled eggs, eggs Benedict, biscuits and Italian sausage gravy, stuffed pasta shells, Cajun shrimp tortellini Alfredo, carved ham, burnt ends and Italian rum cake.

Secret to success: “It’s getting to know your guests on a personal level and catering to that always. Also, consistency with the food and the service,” said Greg Hunsucker, chairman of the board and son-in-law of the Tottas.

Two KC-area restaurants make OpenTable’s list of 100 best brunches in America