The corner restaurant at 549 Gillis St. in Kansas City's Columbus Park neighborhood just started serving dinner, and there's a catch: no reservations, ever. Dear Donna, the daytime cafe from married chefs Johnny and Helen Jo Leach, held a soft opening for dinner service on September 10, and now serves evening meals Thursday and Friday nights on a walk-in-only basis.
The move marks a new chapter for a space that's already carried plenty of names and stories. As The Kansas City Star reports, Dear Donna dinner runs until roughly 8 p.m., with candles added to each table for the occasion. Johnny Leach, who serves as Dear Donna's co-owner and executive chef alongside his role at The Town Company, told the Star the goal was to make Dear Donna feel like a real corner restaurant rather than a special-occasion spot, describing the food as consistently sturdy and reliable.
Dear Donna's four dinner entrées lean into that approachable ethos: garganelli pasta with zucchini, roasted salmon, a bone-in pork chop, and a half-roasted chicken served with mustard sauce and french fries, per the same account. Dessert options include a sherbet sundae and a chocolate surprise cake, while dinner drinks feature a negroni and bottled wine. The restaurant also launched a happy hour Thursday and Friday from 2 to 5 p.m., pricing a rotating cocktail at $8, pimento kimcheese at $4, soup of the moment at $6, the meatloaf melt and fries at $10, beer at $3, and a glass of wine at $6.
A Deliberately Scaled-Back Rollout
Interestingly, the Star notes that Dear Donna initially planned an invitation-only dinner party rather than the open walk-in format it landed on, and the owners also scrapped earlier plans for a sundry shop inside the space. Instead, the team is using the former Columbus Park Ramen space as additional kitchen prep room to support the expanded menu. Beyond the Thursday-Friday dinner slate, Dear Donna is currently open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends.
The owners are already eyeing further growth. According to the Star's reporting, Dear Donna plans to add Saturday dinner service likely in October, may extend to Wednesday evenings as well, and intends to push hours no later than 9:30 p.m. eventually. Whether that expansion changes the intimate, walk-in neighborhood dynamic that has defined the space so far remains an open question, one the Star's coverage raises but does not resolve.
Fine-Dining Pedigree Behind a Casual Menu
Dear Donna's daytime menu already blends comfort food with high-end technique, serving dishes like Dutch baby pancakes, meatloaf melts, and fries alongside smaller plates such as pimento kimcheese, a charred cabbage salad, toast topped with white anchovies and radishes, and mushroom fritters. The cooking pedigree behind those dishes runs deep: before moving to Kansas City, Johnny Leach cooked in high-profile New York City kitchens including Momofuku under David Chang and Del Posto, according to HERLIFE Magazine. He later cooked in Portland and Seattle before being hired to launch The Town Company in 2020.
Helen Jo Leach, Dear Donna's co-owner and executive pastry chef, brings her own resume to the table. As Kansas City Magazine reports, she previously served as head pastry chef at the acclaimed Portland restaurant Le Pigeon before her work at The Town Company built her national reputation. That fine-dining sourcing shows up in Dear Donna's casual menu too, with pain de mie from local Ibis Bakery used for the meatloaf melt, cured Kennebec potatoes for the fries, and lavender and cardamom worked into the granola, the magazine's reporting notes.
That culinary track record earned national recognition earlier this year. The James Beard Foundation named Johnny Leach a semifinalist for Best Chef: Midwest and Helen Jo Leach a semifinalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef in January, both honored for their work at The Town Company, according to Visit KC. The married chef duo runs Dear Donna together with co-owner Sondy Bojanic.
A Corner With Decades of History
The Leaches' flagship, The Town Company, opened in October 2020 inside Hotel Kansas City, a restored 1922 Gothic Revival building that once housed the historic Kansas City Club, with a culinary program centered on an open white oak-burning hearth. Dear Donna itself was named in honor of Johnny Leach's mother, Donna Bennett, a personal touch the owners built into a concept meant to feel comforting and welcoming for the neighborhood.
That neighborhood has its own long memory. Before Dear Donna, the space was Happy Gillis, a Columbus Park fixture that closed in 2025 after a broken air conditioning unit and ongoing staffing challenges became too much to overcome, as detailed in Kansas City Magazine's earlier coverage. Hoodline previously reported on the pressures facing local hospitality businesses in its story on Anton's Steakhouse closing in the Crossroads, noting the same Happy Gillis closure circumstances.
Before that, the corner at 549 Gillis St. housed Gillis Sundries, a local market and penny-candy shop opened in 1946 by Carmelo “Chee Bay” Guastello that served the neighborhood for more than 40 years, according to Northeast News. The surrounding intersection of Pacific and Gillis Streets is locally commemorated as Chee-Bay Way. Columbus Park itself traces back to the 1860s, when it was known as “The North End” or “Little Italy” and was settled heavily by Sicilian immigrants, who comprised 85% of the local Italian population, before residents voted to adopt the Columbus Park name in April 1967.
Navigating a Tough Restaurant Economy
Dear Donna's careful, phased rollout comes as the region's restaurant industry faces real strain. The sector represents the third-largest employment group in the Kansas City metro area with nearly 100,000 workers, while area operators have faced food cost increases of up to 25% alongside declining customer spending. Streamlined, walk-in-only dinner service two nights a week — rather than a full seven-day relaunch — reflects how even James Beard-nominated chefs are navigating that squeeze while keeping their neighborhood spot approachable.
