JOCO Dining

Popular California-based Chinese fast food restaurant Panda Express expects to open a new south Overland Park location early next year. Panda Express corporate told the Post the restaurant chain is targeting an April 9, 2024 opening date. It will have...

The election may not be until November 2020, but the race for the state senate seat occupied by Mary Pilcher-Cook since 2008 has already drawn two candidates. Lindsey Constance, a Shawnee city councilmember and teacher in the Shawnee Mission School...

By Charles Ferruzza I’m sorry that it’s taken me nearly a year to find my way into the artfully-appointed 1889 Pizza Napoletana, the stylish pizzeria created by Kelli and Jason Kolich in Kansas City, Kansas. The venue is located in the...

By Charles Ferruzza Tomorrow – Saturday, March 25 – is one of the happier food holidays: International Waffle Day. My own history with this traditional hot breakfast pastry hasn’t been so upbeat. There have been a couple of times in my...

By Charles Ferruzza I was dining in a new-ish Kansas City soul food restaurant this week that was offering, as the holiday special, a corned beef and cabbage dinner in honor of the Saint Patrick’s Day festivities. We think of corned...

By Charles Ferruzza Forgive me, but I can’t remember where or when I saw the cartoon of a man dining alone, but facing a table generously laden with familiar dishes: steak, potatoes, dinner rolls. And each of those dishes were...

By Charles Ferruzza About a decade ago, I was eating breakfast in a diner – including a half-order of flaky biscuits and sausage gravy – and a complete stranger, one of those know-it-all spoil sport types (crotchety and somewhere...

By Charles Ferruzza I suspect that I should be a lot more excited about the impending arrival – tomorrow, Jan. 28 – of the 2017 Chinese New Year. It does, after all, usher in the Year of the Rooster (you...

By Charles Ferruzza I have not seen the movie The Founder yet – it opened last month so I need to hurry – which stars Michael Keaton as the legendary Ray Kroc, the Illinois salesman who met the two McDonald...

By Charles Ferruzza Since I’m one of those neurotic people who always expect the worst to happen (and I’m rarely disappointed), when I hear the words “ice storm,” I immediately start planning for the worst: power lines crashing down, electricity...

By Charles Ferruzza It really wasn’t until the restrictive Liquor By the Drink laws changed in Kansas in 1987 – laws that had been on the books since 1881 – that restaurants on the Missouri side of the metro began...

By Charles Ferruzza Last week, the original Blue Koi Noodles & Dumplings location in midtown (1803 West 39th Street) re-opened to the public after a four-month renovation following a fire in July. The 14-year-old restaurant was operating in a historic...