City Tavern introduces new menu; Incorporates mix of steaks and chops with trademark seafood
In a town where steaks and barbeque dominate the menus of most restaurants, City Tavern has crafted a niche by offering a variety of steaks, chops, oysters and seafood.
Kansas City, MO (PRWEB via PR Web
Direct) February 7, 2005 -- In a town where steaks and barbeque dominate the
menus of most restaurants, City Tavern has crafted a niche by offering a variety
of steaks, chops, oysters and seafood. The restaurant’s new menu maintains that
tradition, but it also provides guests with more options when they are craving
filets and strips.
Boasting a menu featuring the world’s best seafood,
steaks and chops, City Tavern is nestled in a rustic building where art is now
served – in the parking lot, on the plates and amid the historic architectural
features. Adorned with dark reclaimed woodwork, exposed brick walls, antique
light fixtures and vintage mirrors, the restaurant looks like it could have been
there for a century, though its’ doors opened in this new millennium. That is
exactly what Dan Clothier intended when his vision was finally
fulfilled.
Situated between the highly regarded Lidia’s and Fiorella’s
Jack Stack Barbeque, City Tavern represents the final element of a bustling
entertainment spot Clothier imagined when he teamed with a group of investors to
buy a dilapidated former railroad warehouse near the Kansas City Union Station
in 1995. Today, his restaurant is part of a culinary destination that is known
as the Freight House, which is the centerpiece of eclectic district lined with
art galleries and refurbished 19th century buildings. In 2003 Gourmet magazine
included all three Freight House restaurants in its Guide to America’s Best
Restaurants, three out of just six restaurants listed in Kansas
City.
More than two years after City Tavern first opened, the restaurant
is brimming with a dinner crowd on a weekday night. Tables are dotted with
oysters from the Pacific Northwest and North Atlantic; appetizers like tuna
tartare and steamed mussels in shellfish broth; and entrees that include sea
scallops with Chinese mustard glaze, Campo Lindo chicken, Alma Farms boneless
pork chops with rosemary apples, and a dry aged Kansas City Strip with au poivre
sauce. City Tavern has developed a following of loyal patrons who savor its
selections of seafood dishes and creative preparations of duck, chicken, pork
and beef entrees.
Word is spreading about City Tavern, in a favorable
way, which is soothing to Clothier’s ears. Just as he encountered obstacles when
it appeared the Freight House could not be revitalized, Clothier was confronted
with another hurdle not long after his restaurant debuted in September, 2002.
The original executive chef, who had previously owned and operated a four-star
restaurant in Kansas City, developed a high-end, a la carte menu for City
Tavern, with price points that exceeded $50 for dinner and $25 for lunch,
despite the fact that the original business plan called for check averages more
in the $35 and $15 range.
“We quickly learned that our customer base
didn’t embrace our concept,” said Clothier, a real estate developer from Wichita
who has a house in his hometown and an apartment in Kansas City. “So we hired a
new chef, by promoting our sous chef, and changed our menu to a bistro style
menu better suited to the new chef and to our patrons.”
With prices and
cuisine that was more palatable for the restaurant’s customer base, City Tavern
sales stabilized. The new chef, whose cuisine had also garnered four stars from
the Kansas City Star food critic at a previous restaurant, immediately made his
mark by simplifying dishes and broadening the menu to include shellfish, fish,
lamb, duck, steaks and chops. Befitting the menu’s bistro style, sides and
starches were added to create complete plate choices for diners and prices were
lowered. Guests were pleased.
Combined with curiosity about the new menu,
the ambience, which reflects Clothier’s passion for historic preservation, is a
major factor in luring guests back to City Tavern. The restaurant’s interior is
enlivened with salvaged pieces of structures that stood in Kansas City years
ago. The 7,500-square-foot space includes 30-foot timbered ceilings, exposed
brick walls, high-arched doorways and windows, Missouri marble atop the oyster
bar, restored terra cotta and handmade tiles adorning the walls, and a heart of
pine floor.
Clothier saw a drastically different picture when Sterling
Capital acquired the building in 1995. Built in 1887 by a railroad company, the
500 foot long and 40 foot wide Freight House was a leaky eyesore that was
destined for the wrecking ball until Clothier and his team of investors bought
it and initially envisioned a restaurant, retail and office center with a hotel
and parking garage. When plans for that complex were dashed, a marketing study
was conducted and the results determined that the Freight House would be ideal
as a destination of three restaurants.
To add to the growing community of
artists and art galleries in the neighborhood, now known as the Crossroads Arts
District, Clothier commissioned homegrown artists to transform the Freight
House’s spacious parking lot, which borders the railroad tracks, into a haven
for public art – an appropriate move for a district now known for its boutique
art galleries. Even the parking lot lights are works of art – reminiscent of
train signals with patterns of incandescent lights arranged in varying degrees
of animation. The Freight House is a centerpiece of the Crossroads Arts
District, which is now home to more than forty art galleries located within a
few blocks of the Freight House.
Clothier also enticed celebrity chef
Lidia Bastianich to open her first restaurant outside of New York City. Lidia’s
Kansas City, which serves Northern Italian cuisine, opened in October, 1998.
Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbeque, owned by Jack Fiorella, debuted in October 2000,
leaving space for one more location. Clothier, whose favorite dining
destinations included seafood eateries in New York City and San Francisco,
decided to open his own oyster bar and seafood restaurant in an atmosphere that
illustrated Kansas City’s rich railroad heritage, defined by the nearby Kansas
City Union Station, which was recently renovated and now houses a science
center, shops and cafes. The Freight House is an instrumental part of Kansas
City’s downtown renaissance, which will continue when a walkway from the Union
Station to the Freight House is constructed.
“What we have is more than a
group of restaurants; this is a destination,” said Clothier, who earned an
undergraduate degree in history and a law degree from Kansas University. “It’s a
place where pieces of old Kansas City live on, and where the new Kansas City
thrives.”
For more information contact:
Jeff
Louderback
Quantified Marketing Group
407-474-6149 (cell)
e-mail
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