The Corvino Supper Club & Tasting Room will be located in the historic Corrigan Station, located at 1828 Walnut in Kansas City, Mo.
Developers of the historic Corrigan Station have found a new first-floor tenant for the building. Michael Corvino, former head chef at The American restaurant, along with his wife Christina, will open a new concept called Corvino Supper Club and Tasting Room.
“I knew after my tenure at The American that the time would be right to open my own restaurant,” Corvino said. “After considering several cities, Christina and I agreed there was nowhere else we wanted to be than Kansas City. The Crossroads felt like the perfect location, and the Corrigan Building offered us a space that we literally could not find anywhere else.”
Corvino first came to Kansas City in 2013, beckoned by The American, and since then has been invited to cook at the James Beard Foundation house in New York City, a prestigious honor. Since coming to Kansas City, he met Christina, who would soon become his wife. Today, she serves as co-owner and will focus on marketing and guest experience.
Set to open in early 2017, the new 6,000 square foot restaurant will play on the building’s spacious 16-foot ceiling heights and concrete columns.
“We designed the entire restaurant around the concrete pillars,” said Christina Corvino. “We wanted a space that would allow us to create a restaurant setting like no other in the city. The history and magnificence of the Corrigan Building fits our concept perfectly.”
The restaurant will seat 90 in the main dining room and bar, called the Supper Club. The menu will focus on a seasonal menu of shared plates of “contemporary American food.” An 18-seat bar will have a large viewing window into the kitchen, while live jazz plays every night. A late night menu will also be available until 1 a.m. on the weekends. The Tasting Room portion of the restaurant will be completely separate, and will be what the Corvinos call “a luxurious jewel box,” seating up to 18 guests. There, Corvino will serve a tasting menu of a dozen courses offered with wine pairings. Guests will see he and his sous chefs plate food and interact from a semi-open kitchen.
The historic Corrigan Station will be redeveloped alongside a new 37,500 attached structure housing office and retail space.
A penthouse on the top floor will offer unparalleled views of Kansas City.
“We are very excited to feature both Michael and Christina Corvino in this dynamic space and to partner with them for their first owner-operator restaurant,” said Vince Bryant, owner of 3D Development and a co-developer of Corrigan Station, along with Copaken Brooks. “They truly are the perfect fit for the building and the overall Corrigan Station project, and we expect they will become a favored destination to the local dining community.”
Hufft Projects is working with the Corvinos on the design concept.
“We had hoped to find a chef-driven restaurant tenant that could really maximize the incredible first floor space, and having one with such a strong background that is locally owned and supported is very exciting,” said Jon Copaken, co-developer and principal at Copaken Brooks.
It’s the second restaurant slated to go into the project. Just across the street, sitting east of Walnut, an adjacent parking garage will go up. In the first floor of retail space, Chewology {Dumpling & Dough}, a casual East Asian restaurant showcasing handcrafted dumplings, will open. Tenants already announced include Hollis + Miller, who will take 31,000 square feet on floors 8 through 10. Holmes Murphy, a Des Moines-based insurance and employee benefits insurance company, will take 11,000 square feet on the fourth floor.
According to Copaken Brooks, Corrigan Station will have an modern, urban character, with open floor plates and abundant natural light, offering unparalleled views of the arts district, a rooftop patio and two-story club house, coffee shop, showers, and gathering spaces. Developers want to achieve LEED certification on the project as an energy efficient “green” building.
Still up for grabs are 1,500 square feet of first-floor retail space and floors 2 through 6 in the historic building. For more information, visit the Corrigan website.