JJ's Restaurant Benefit and Silent Auction

 

 

There is another fundraiser coming up this coming Tuesday evening at 7 pm at Uptown Hall (formerly Uptown Theater) at 3700 Broadway.

It is sponsored by the official "Friends of JJ's" group and is to be a  "a party with JJ’s Restaurant owners, staff, patrons and friends in support of JJ's employees impacted by a devastating fire Feb. 19, 2013. Hosted by former Chiefs player Eddie Kennison and KCTV5’s Kelly Jones, attendees will enjoy food and drink from area restaurants while listening to live music on multiple stages and browsing a silent auction with a number of items from local merchants."

According to the press release:

Proceeds will benefit the immediate needs of JJ’s staff and employees impacted by the Plaza fire, as well as create a fund in honor of Megan Cramer, a JJ’s colleague who died in the Feb. 19 fire.

Tickets to the March 5 Benefit go on sale Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster.

And here's the great thing. Tickets to attend are only $10 for most of us working-class schmucks. It's an excellent way to be able to support this group affordably.

For those with more money and/or capabilities and for companies and corporations in town, there are yet more ways to help. Other ticket level groups are as follows:

Trésor Club - $500 – includes on-site event concierge, VIP door entry, secured parking, early access to silent auction at 6pm, access to private bar (complimentary food and beverages), super-premium seating, and commemorative poster.

Sabre Club - $200 – includes VIP door entry, access to private bar (complimentary food and beverages), premium seating, and commemorative poster.

The Locker Room - $100 – includes seating, two drink tickets, and commemorative poster.

So by all means, folks, let's be sure to put this on our calendars and get down to the Uptown to help these people.

And have a great time, at the same time.

For more information visit Friends of JJ's | Facebook, or contact Andrea Shores at friendsofjjs@gmail.com or 646.378.9885.

Thank you, in advance, for your contributions.

Additional links:  www.uptowntheater.com, index - Kansas City

Read more here: http://pressreleases.kcstar.com/release/messages/39652/#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://pressreleases.kcstar.com/release/messages/39652/#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://pressreleases.kcstar.com/release/messages/39652/#storylink=cpy

JJ's restaurant fundraiser update

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the day.

 

From the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association  website:

The Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association is gathering our Restaurant Week participants and ANY restaurant who would like to participate to join in a city-wide, one day, Restaurant Week-style fundraiser. Participants will donate 10% of sales on Saturday, February 23, 2013 to the staff, families and victims of the tragedy at JJ’s.

Restaurants are also encouraged to have a “donation jar” available to accept cash or check donations from guests or employees if they’d like to contribute additional funds.

We, as restaurants and vendors, understand the overwhelming desire to help a fellow member of the restaurant community who has given so much to their neighbors and friends for so many years. It’s time to give back.

To sign up, simply email or give them a call 816-753-5222 to say you’re in by today, Friday, February 22nd.

100% of the proceeds will go to the JJ’s Restaurant Support Fund, c/o GKCRA 4049 Pennsylvania, Ste. 204, KCMO 64111

According to the Kansas City Originals Restaurants, the following restaurants will be participating:

 

Le Fou Frog
Blue Grotto
Nicas 320
The Well
Lew's
Ya Ya's Euro Bistro
Snow & Co
The Jacobson
The Roasterie Café (all 3 locations)
Classic Cup
Story
EBT Restaurant
Pizza 51
Golden Ox
Popeyes Chicken
The Capital Grille
SPIN Pizza - Main Street
Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen - Legends
Grand Street Café
Osteria Il Centro
Café Trio
Minsky's - Main St
Eggtc - Main St
Tavern at Mission Farms
Tavern in the Village
Blue Bird Bistro
Providence New American Kitchen
Coach's Kansas City
Coach's Overland Park
Chaz on the Plaza
La Bodega - Leawood
Seasons 52
Fogo de Chao
Ruth's Chris Steak House

Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue Restaurant

 

Kudos to all the restaurants, people and organizations who are joining in on this effort and to you, Kansas City.

 

Additional links:

 

INDIEGOGO - Donations
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fundraiser-for-the-employee-s-and-staff-of-jj-s-restaurant

FRIENDS OF JJ's BENEFIT - Tuesday, March 5 - A night of music at the Uptown Theatre. more info here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/448274298579657/?fref=ts

SERVERS IN SERVICE - Foundry and McCoy's servers raise money for JJ's. More info here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/348345018615214/?fref=ts

INNOVATIVE DESIGN & MARKETING LLC Event @ Prospero's Books- VISION Workshop - Creating the Life of Your Dreams. Portions of the proceeds from this event will be donated:
https://www.facebook.com/events/210449842435013/

 

POP UP FUNDRAISER - AMERICAN RESTAURANT
more information on this as it becomes available.

 

Please, if you can, join in this effort to help these people and this group.

Thank you, Polsinelli, Shughart! (Now let's hear it for JJ's!)

That is some great news, what with the Polsinelli Shughart Law Firm deciding they would, in fact, build their new office building on the site of the West Edge Project. Is it a completely perfect solution? No, probably not, but it comes darn close. They get the new, sleek, mostly all glass office tower they wanted and this West Edge site gets used after all. Of course it will be some time what with having to tear down the shell of a building now, redo the foundation for the new building and then build the new one they want. Let's hear it for JJ's restaurant, their staff and clients and all their patience! This has been, probably, the worst nightmare for them, since they had to put up with the blasting and construction of this Moshe Safdie building, then waiting through this non-occupation mess and now this. I'll say this, you have to know 2 things about JJ's restaurant: first, it's great food, atmosphere and service or they wouldn't have made it. Second, they've done great marketing of the restaurant, in order to survive this business nightmare, on so many levels. Here's to you, JJ's! Salutations! There's light at the end of the tunnel! It's just going to take another year or so until, finally, there's a building across the street from you that's finished and occupied.

Polsinelli Shughart and the West Edge: PLEASE???

From what Kevin Collison at the Star says in the paper today, the Polsinelli Shughart law firm is still considering different locations for its new headquarters in the area. Some of those are a spot still with Highwoods, North of Valencia Place, a downtown block near the Sprint Center, "the proposed Mission Gateway across the State Line" and, finally, thank goodness, "the unfinished West Edge Project." Please, please, for all that's good in this city, let it be the West Edge. It would, hopefully, be a match made in heaven. Someone needs to take over and complete that eyesore, it would keep them on the Plaza and hopefully fill their needs for space. That big hunk of construction needs an occupant and badly. It would be terrific for the Plaza, great for the city and, finally, maybe buy back some goodwill for Polsinelli to the people of the city. Here's hoping. Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/15/3078367/lessons-from-the-balcony-building.html

The Plaza: Not that difficult and we all win

Over at TKC, Tony was complaining that we were all whiny, as a city, about preserving the Plaza when a lot of us complained about the possible razing of the Balcony building for the Polsinelli Law Firm's new building. But look what happened. Highwoods Properties and Polsinelli announced their plans, people didn't like them, they reworked them and now everyone, it seems, is getting what they want. Polsinelli and Highwoods get the new facility they want and need, the old Balcony building is saved and, really, the Plaza properties will be "new and improved" and invested in well so it can grow and develop wisely. This truly is one of those hoped-for "win/win/win" situations. Best of all, for Polsinelli--and even Highwoods--they come out of this with the reputations of doing the right thing for, yes, the Plaza, but also the city. It's a great PR move. What would have been a permanent black eye, of sorts, is now a badge of honor. It's a good day for Kansas City and all involved in this process. Have a great weekend, y'all. link to original post: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/26/2179076/highwoods-revises-plans-for-plaza.html

In case you'd care to help fight the new Polsinelli building on the Plaza

This entry is for just that--in case you want to help fight the new Polsinelli building proposed for the Plaza. If you're on Facebook (come on, admit it, you are), search for this group: Save the Plaza 2010 Then join, of course. They're having an organizational meeting this Friday evening at 5:30 pm, you'll find. You can also reach them at their email address savethe Plaza@yahoo.com. You are recommended to attend the rezoning hearing on oct. 5 at 12:30 at City Hall, too, if you can. Finally, if you can, listen in today on KCUR 89.3 FM, 11am as Steve Kraske will be talking with Kansas City Star development reporter Kevin Collison, Polsinelli Shughart chairman and chief executive W. Russell Welsh, Historic Kansas City Foundation president Scott Lane and others about the proposed project and why it's creating so much controversy. Side note: I'll bet the Polsinelli people are regretting now that they are immediately known as "The Law Firm That Wants to Tear Down Part of the Historic Country Club Plaza, Only to Build a New, Irrelevant, Contemporary Structure." Just bad PR, all the way around, huh? Too bad. Here's hoping. Have a great week, y'all.

On the Plaza and the proposed new building

I thought I might avoid this entry but I just can't. I can't help but write on how monumentally stupid and short-sighted it is for Highwoods Properties and the Polsinelli-Shughart Law Firm to propose tearing down one of the original, landmark Plaza buildings, in order to build a new, contemporary one that fits their needs. At least when the Lockton Companies built theirs they a) built it on an otherwise barren property and b) put one up that matched, in style, the mediteranean/Spanish style of the rest of the Plaza. The fact is, the Plaza still works, as a retail and restaurant destination right now, in spite of the fact that a huge quantity of the stores and spaces on it are utterly empty right now. And do you know why it works? It works because JC Nichols put up good, solid, one-style architecture and so created a destination. It only still works because it has good architecture--good "bones", so to speak--and so, feels like we've really gone somewhere, when we do go down there. What other area or place in town does that? Downtown? Decidedly not. Oak Park Mall? Please. No, the answer is no. The fact is, there is no other one area in town that is built the way places used to be built like this and that is the Country Club Plaza. For Highwoods and Polsinelli to now propose the beginning of what is surely the further dismantling of the Plaza is tremedously short-sighted and empty. If they want this building, find another site, please, ladies and gentlemen. But the fact is, this go-round, they know better than to ask for TIF money to create this debacle and it's all their own, private money. I'm afraid it looks as though it really will go through---unless Kansas Citians truly raise hell about it. I hope we're not all so poor that we don't have time to do just that--protest so much the plans are changed. Note to Polsinelli-Shughart: can't you just, please, make the "West Edge" project work for you? Please?? Links to related posts: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/19/2162001/office-building-planned-in-heart.html http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/20/2164294/irate-plaza-fans-object-to-law.html