Downtown food hall hits closing time; Strang’s chef-driven concept leaving lightwell

Strang Chef Collective is serving its final customers within the food hall’s downtown space, said CEO Shawn Craft, announcing the lightwell location would close Tuesday “despite the company’s best efforts over the past year to keep it open.”

Strang Chef Collective within the lightwell building in downtown Kansas City; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

The chef-driven concept — through which diners experience a mix of global and elevated comfort flavors — debuted two years ago with Strang Chef Collective capitalizing on the popularity of its original Overland Park location, Strang Hall. Its nearly 5,000-square-foot space on the lower level of the downtown lightwell building boasts two distinct cuisine offerings, along with a bar.

A food hall at lightwell was long planned by the developers behind the massive renovation of the 30-story former City Center Square building, sharing details of the space with Startland News in 2019. In early 2020, Tim Barton — the serial entrepreneur behind Strang Hall and Overland Park’s Edison District — teased to Startland a five-chef, 13,500-square-foot food hall planned for lightwell with work already under way.

Less than a month later, an unexpected pandemic, however, significantly delayed the overall lightwell project with a scaled-back version of Strang ultimately opening in December 2022.

Shawn Craft, Strang Chef Collective

“Being a part of lightwell was an exciting part of our brand growth for Strang Hall and we hoped for long-term partnership downtown,” said Craft, describing the pre-COVID aspirations for Strang to serve a wide variety of tech and innovation workers in the building. “However, we planned this concept before the world changed from the pandemic and the new era of hybrid work weeks and flex schedules decimated downtown foot traffic, which made it extremely challenging to sustain long-term even with our best efforts.”

Another Strang expansion location opened on the Country Club Plaza in November 2023. That version of the food hall is expected to remain open, Craft said.

A representative from Strang Chef Collective declined to comment on the current outlook at the Plaza location or about how the closure at lightwell would impact the brand’s overall growth strategy.

Strang’s lightwell space most recently featured cuisine from Panacea, a New American bistro, and Anousone, which draws from Laotian-born Chef Anourom Thomson’s journey as a refugee who found solace in his mother’s home cooking.

From the archives: Chef behind Strang Hall favorite Anousone brings his popular Laotian fare downtown

The lightwell building at 1100 Main St. in downtown Kansas City; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

Anousone is expected to continue operating at its sister space within Strang Hall in Overland Park, where it already had established itself as a staple of the original food hall. Representatives from Strang Chef Collectives declined to comment on the future of Panacea.

Strang’s neighbor on lightwell’s lower level, Prefix Coffee, continues to operate in an adjacent space on the Main Street side of the renovated office building. It took over the longtime coffee spot from Made in KC Cafe a year ago, with the local retailer having previously replaced a Starbucks in the same location.

Designed as a downtown innovation hub, lightwell boasts a range of startups and tech-focused organizations, from PayIt, VinCue and OPENLANE (formerly BacklotCars) to the KC Tech Council and WeWork.