Hereford House and Houlihan's Are Gone From Town Center Plaza. Here's What's Replacing Them.

Drive past 119th and Roe this month and you will notice two dark storefronts on opposite sides of Town Center Plaza. The old Hereford House sign has been dark since August 2024. Houlihan's, which sat on the south side between Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware, went dark more recently, closing its doors on March 27, 2026. Between them, these two restaurants anchored the plaza for roughly 30 years.

If you have lived in Leawood for any length of time, you probably ate a steak or split an order of wings at one of these places at some point. So the natural question is whether Town Center is losing its footing. The answer, based on what the city has actually approved, is closer to the opposite. Leawood's planning commission signed off on plans this spring that will turn those two closures into five new restaurants. The plaza is not thinning out its dining options. It is doubling down on them, while everything around them turns over at a much faster clip.

Two Closures, One Explanation That Doesn't Apply to Both

The Hereford House story is the uglier of the two. The restaurant closed in August 2024 amid financial strain following a food contamination case involving a former employee, who was later sentenced to more than 11 years in prison on charges connected to adulterating food. The steakhouse's other location, at Zona Rosa, closed months after Leawood's did.

Houlihan's closure had nothing to do with any of that. It was a straightforward real estate decision. Developers filed plans with the city to demolish the building and replace it with new restaurant space, and Houlihan's corporate leadership, which is headquartered in Leawood, confirmed the closing date and said staff would be placed at the chain's remaining Overland Park and Lee's Summit locations.

Two different causes, same result: two of the plaza's longest-running restaurant spaces sitting empty at the same time. What happens next is where it gets interesting.

The North Side: A Sports Bar Keeps the Building

The old Hereford House building, which dates to 1996, is not coming down. Brooksider Sportsbar & Grill, the Brookside neighborhood staple that has operated since 1985, is opening its second location there under father-son owners Chuck and Jack Naylor. They took possession of the building earlier this year and are keeping its two-story, roughly 12,200-square-foot footprint intact while repainting the brick and stucco exterior and extending the patio by 746 square feet. A new turfed area of nearly 900 square feet will add a television screen, yard games, and more outdoor seating.

"We're gutting the building," Jack Naylor told the Kansas City Star, describing the shift from steakhouse to sports bar with an event space upstairs. The menu will mirror the original Brookside location: Nashville hot chicken sandwiches, BBQ pulled pork nachos, burgers, and mac and cheese. An opening date depends on how the city's permitting process goes, but the Naylors are targeting fall 2026.

Leawood's planning commission chair, David Coleman, called the redesign "a great addition" and said he thought it was "an improvement over the Hereford House."

The South Side: A Bigger, Vaguer Bet

The Houlihan's site is a different kind of project. Developer Drake Development, represented by Dave Olson, plans to demolish the building entirely and replace it with two new structures holding four restaurant concepts total. Olson told the planning commission in April that demolition could start as early as May 2026, which means the south side of the plaza is likely already mid-construction as of this writing. He declined to name any of the incoming tenants but described them as "high-end restaurants" new to the Kansas City area, with a mix of dining types across the four spaces.

"I can bet you'll be happy with those," he told commissioners.

Between the two projects, Coleman noted that the city approved five new restaurants in a single evening, calling it proof that "Town Center is now the hot place for restaurants," according to reporting from the Johnson County Post.

Meanwhile, the Retail Spaces Are Turning Over in Months, Not Years

Walk the rest of the plaza and a different rhythm is playing out. In the space that Rockhill Grille occupied for about two years, Coach has moved in, bringing handbags and accessories to a spot near Trader Joe's and Fabletics at Town Center Crossing. It is the brand's second Johnson County location, following one inside Oak Park Mall.

The turnover gets faster from there. Frannie Franks, a Missouri-based coffee cake maker, occupied a space on the east side of Town Center Plaza for roughly five months before closing. Utah-based custom suit shop H.M. Cole moved in behind it, beginning appointments in June 2026 with a grand opening planned for later this summer. Its manager, Ethan Parrish, told the Johnson County Post that "Leawood has just been blowing up," calling the market's growth a reason to plant the brand's first Johnson County flag there.

Add up the rest of this year's announcements and the pace looks less like a slow refresh and more like a wave: [solidcore] is opening a fitness studio between Athleta and Gorjana. LEGO was targeting a summer 2026 opening next to Tecovas as the only Johnson County location for the brand. Drybar is moving in next to Trader Joe's. The Coach Coffee Shop, only the third of its kind in the country, is opening next to EVEREVE at Town Center Crossing. Lululemon is expanding its existing footprint at Town Center Crossing. Local Lime Tacos and Margaritas has joined the dining lineup. And California-based athleisure brand ALO is opening its first Kansas City-area store this fall in the former Sundance space next to Gap, at 4868 W. 119th St.

Line those two patterns up and the difference is the story. The restaurant projects at the old Hereford House and Houlihan's sites involve months of permitting, full renovations or full demolitions, and multi-year commitments to new buildings. The retail spaces around them are cycling through tenants in a matter of months, sometimes less than half a year. If you want to know where Town Center Plaza's owners are placing their longest bets, it is not the yoga pants or the suit fabric. It is the kitchens.

What to Expect If You're Headed There This Fall

1. H.M. Cole is already taking appointments in its new space on the east side of Town Center Plaza, with a grand opening event planned later this summer.
2. LEGO was targeting a summer 2026 opening next to Tecovas, its only Johnson County storefront.
3. ALO is targeting a fall 2026 opening at the former Sundance location, its first store in the Kansas City metro.
4. Brooksider Sportsbar & Grill is aiming for a fall opening at the old Hereford House building, with the timeline depending on the city's permitting process.
5. Expect construction fencing already up on the south side of the plaza, since demolition at the old Houlihan's site was targeted for May 2026. Tenant announcements for the four new restaurants have not been made public yet.

None of this changes what Town Center Plaza has always been for Leawood residents: a place to grab dinner, run an errand, or catch a movie at the AMC. But if the last few months are any indication, the mix of what's there is shifting toward more dining options with bigger footprints, even as the retail tenants around them keep changing faster than most people can keep track of.

The Sigman Team has been showing up at this corner of Leawood for decades, long enough to remember what used to sit in half these storefronts. If you've got a favorite Town Center memory from the old Hereford House or Houlihan's, or you're just curious what else is changing around 119th and Roe, contact us anytime. We're always happy to talk shop about the neighborhood.