about jo marie
Jo Marie Scaglia comes from two sides of multi-generation Kansas City restaurateurs, so you could say that serving her community with good food is in her bones. When she’s not thinking of menu planning for her restaurants, she’s thinking of menu planning for her weekend get-together — it’s like her superpower.
Born into an Italian family, Jo Marie grew up cooking everything from scratch, sourced from her own backyard garden when possible. When she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area for 10 years as a young adult, she was influenced by farmer’s markets that stretched as far as the eye could see, and a health-minded lifestyle that was just starting to become a part of the general cultural consciousness. At the time, “clean” was a thing you did to your mirrors and “wellness” wasn’t a movement. There was no Whole30, almond milk was for hippies, and saturated fat was still legal in New York.
So Jo Marie moved back to Kansas City, worked at a flower shop while writing a business plan and running a catering business out of her house — and, pardon the cliche, the rest is history.
“When you walk into one of my restaurants, you walk into one of my houses,” Jo says. If you don’t know her already, watch for her the next time you come in. She’ll probably be bringing someone a cup of soup, or asking a Tuesday regular about their kids, or recipe testing a new special. (Definitely hang close if recipe testing is happening, trust us!)
Jo Marie’s daughter Star is celiac, so the menu is designed with plenty of options for those eating gluten-free, vegan or vegetarian and we’ve created cheat sheets for those of you eating Whole30, Paleo or Keto, too.
From all her experiences combined, Jo Marie has developed a food theory that she lives, cooks, eats and operates all of her restaurants by…
