Dental Implants Near Shawnee, KS

This past week, a space once occupied by an auto shop in downtown Shawnee officially took on new life as a bar and grill but with a nod to the building’s history.

It’s been a busy first several days for Hank’s Garage & Grill, with lots of its first customers enjoying burgers and drinks throughout the week.

It was hard work turning the garage into the eatery it is now — but owner Eric Flanagan said all of that effort appears to be paying off.

“Everybody has been very receptive and very appreciative,” he said. “It’s always nice to hear because we’ve been working our tails off on this.”

The new restaurant and bar celebrated its grand opening last Thursday. So far, Flanagan said business has been booming.

Hank’s opened at 5801 Nieman Rd.

Hank’s offers “elevated sports bar fare”

Since the restaurant opened, Flanagan said its various burgers and its pork tenderloin sandwich have quickly become top-selling items.

Customers can also choose from items like Chicago-style hot dogs, Cobb salads, shrimp Po’boy sandwiches and house made fettuccine pasta.

On the drinks side, Hank’s serves a variety of canned and bottled beers and seltzers, as well as craft cocktails like margaritas, Micheladas and blueberry mojitos.

When it came to creating the menu, Flanagan said the goal was upscale, yet approachable.

“There weren’t a lot of food spots, but there’s already some great cocktail bars and breweries (in downtown Shawnee),” Flanagan said. “We wanted to be creative with it, but we don’t want to be too far off center where it turns people off.”

Landing on the name “Hank’s” gave the restaurant a coincidental tie to its previous life as an auto garage.

While he didn’t know this when he chose it, Flanagan said one of the auto shop’s former owners, Hank Baumgartner, operated the garage until 1990. (At the time, it was called Fisher Automotive.)

In terms of the building itself, it now has a renovated canopy-covered patio, which customers can access through the building’s garage doors.

They’ve also added a secondary building and a storage container attached to the back of the original one that housed Shawnee Automotive.

A new greenspace was also added onto the patio, for customers to play yard games or enjoy sunny days outside.

“We want it to be a neighborhood bar,” Flanagan said.

Hank’s Garage is Flanagan’s first Johnson County venture

Though Hank’s is Flanagan’s first bar on the Kansas side of the state line, it’s not his first in the wider Kansas City metro.

He also owns Kansas, City Missouri-based bar and deli King G’s, as well as Jim’s Alley Bar next door in Kansas City’s Crossroads district.

General manager Eric Simbeck is also operating Hank’s Garage’s bar, while chefs Howard Hanna and Zach Sachs handle the food.

Flanagan said the idea for Hank’s Garage came to him while spending time in downtown Shawnee with his wife after a date at cocktail bar Wild Child. They noticed that the former auto garage was undergoing redevelopment, and inspiration struck.

“We walked along the whole perimeter of the property and started thinking about what it could be,” he said. “Being in downtown Shawnee with all of these great food and beverage places around it was very appealing.”

While Hank’s Garage is not Flanagan’s first bar, he said he aimed to bring something new to his portfolio and to the Shawnee community.

“We don’t like to just do what everybody else is doing,” he said. “Whether it’s the bar program, the food program, or the aesthetics that I design for a place like this — the creative aspect is my favorite part of this.”

More food and drink news: HomeGrown, Kansas-based breakfast and brunch spot, readies new Merriam location

The Shawnee City Council unanimously approved a new single-family residential development off of Clare Road during its Monday meeting, despite ongoing concerns from the project’s neighbors about traffic.

Kansas City developer Prieb Homes proposed to construct 62 single-family residential homes and designated open space on approximately 42 acres of land in the northwest corner of 71st Street and Clare Road in western Shawnee.

In 2005, the council approved a project that would develop 74 lots on 71.42 acres in the same area. Between 2007 and 2008, Johnson County Wastewater installed public sewer mains throughout the site in anticipation of the development, but the project never came to fruition. While 34 of the original 71 acres sold to a single owner to build one estate home, the remaining acres sit undeveloped adjacent to the Greens of Chapel Creek subdivision.

The Planning Commission unanimously approved the project on March 3 where some residents first showed up to air their concerns about traffic.

As the Johnson County city grows, Shawnee has seen resistance from both residents and its elected officials to the development it needs to build in order to keep up with the demand.

The Kansas Supreme Court recently returned a $50 million housing project to the City Council for reevaluation. The project failed back in 2019 after residents came forward with concerns about density, neighborhood character, traffic, and overcrowding.

In 2021, three planning commissioners abruptly resigned after the City Council caused several housing development projects to fail when they had overwhelming approval from the Planning Commission.

This time around, neighbors, primarily from the Greens of Chapel Creek subdivision, came to ask their representatives for sidewalk and roadway improvements if the project moves forward.

The new development is projected to generate 650 daily trips, according to the staff report. Staff noted that the additional volume isn’t expected to “materially impact the operation of existing roadway network,” and improvements on 71st Street or Clare Road are not required.

Several Greens of Chapel Creek residents asked for Clare Road to be widened to account for the higher traffic.

Resident John Bricklemeyer told the council that the area already sees a lot of speeding, and people don’t stop at the stop signs at 67th Street and Hedge Lane. He asked the council to add speed bumps in the area to “slow things down.”

The project includes a shared use path along 71st Street to help residents get to Erfurt City Park. Fellow resident John Dudgeon said that filling in the remaining two blocks could help other residents in the area get to the city park, as they currently don’t have sidewalks in their area.

“I walk 71st Street every single morning with my dog and I have to walk the ditch for the most part,” Dudgeon said, adding that he walks early in the morning when it’s still dark out and it’s hard to see. “I realize you’re not going to make the whole street wider, but two additional blocks would really help.”

While the City Council can’t complete all of the requests at once through this project, Councilmember Tony Gillette said that the discussion can help guide the city’s priorities in its Capital Improvement Program — a process where the council decides how it will allocate funding to projects throughout the city.

“I’m looking forward to this being single family homes and a growth area there. We just have to make sure we develop it properly for the citizens and future of Shawnee,” Gillette said.

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The Kansas City Star

Taylor is The Star’s Johnson County watchdog reporter. Before coming to Kansas City, she reported on north Santa Barbara County, California, covering local governments, school districts and issues ranging from the housing crisis to water conservation. She grew up in Minneapolis and graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

On a sunny Monday afternoon, Eric Flanagan sat on the patio of his new restaurant, cars whooshing down Nieman Road.

What was he most looking forward to about the opening of Hank’s Garage? He motioned to the long wooden tables and turf with Hank’s-branded cornhole boards.

“It’s looking like what I thought I wanted it to look in my head,” Flanagan said. “To see people out here, enjoying some burgers and beers and watching the game … having some young families and kids running around.”

Especially on days like that afternoon: slightly breezy and 75 degrees.

His bar and grill celebrated its grand opening Thursday at 5801 Nieman Road in Shawnee, taking over an old auto garage built in the 1960s. Diners can sit inside and munch on their burgers, hot dogs, pasta and other dishes.

Garage doors connect to the dining room to its spacious outdoor seating area with long tables.

The paved patio is covered by an added-on gas station-style canopy — “We tried to make it look like it’s always been here,” Flanagan said. A shipping-container-turned-bar ensures customers won’t have to leave the fresh air for a cocktail.

You may have eaten at one of Flanagan’s other bars and restaurants. He opened two in the Crossroads: first King G in 2021, then Jim’s Alley Bar in late 2022. The two concepts neighbor each other at 500 E. 18th St.

With Hank’s, however, he wanted to create something that matched the building’s history and quirks. Plus, why give Kansas Citians something they’ve already seen?

Two neon Mobil pegaguses — or is it pegasi? — glow against the backsplash of the interior bar. Lined up against it are powder-blue bar stools reminiscent of an old diner. Wood paneling lines the walls.

Amid the vintage decor, several televisions hang inside and out. Hank’s aims to be a go-to spot for downtown Shawnee residents to watch games. It’s within walking distance from several apartments just down the street.

“We’re just trying to be a neighborhood bar,” Flanagan said.

Flanagan’s team — which includes local chefs Howard Hanna and Zac Sachs — didn’t want to make the menu unapproachable. You won’t find overcomplicated dishes no one’s heard of, but the food isn’t run of the mill, either.

Smash burgers are popular at bars, and many claim to do it best. But in order to validate that claim, Sachs traveled to the smash burger’s birthplace of El Reno, Oklahoma, to learn the perfect technique. (Thinly sliced, lightly crisped onions are key.)

A few others on the menu: Chicago-style hotdogs, roasted pork with broccoli rabe, lasagne and Italian sliders.

“Almost everything we do is from scratch,” Sachs said. “Fresh, we tried to find as much local as we could.”

Hanna, whose family hails from Samoa, is bringing a Pacific Islander favorite to the menu: Spam fries. Served in a cut-open can, the sliced and batter-fried Spam are served with banana ketchup.

On the drink side of the menu, Hank’s is offering beer, mixed drinks and wine. Eric Simbeck is operating the bar program.

His cocktails include the Zero to Sixty (vodka, coffee liquor, amaro, vanilla, house brew and nitrogen), Seventy-Seven (rye whiskey and house lemon-lime soda) and Painkiller (rum, pineapple, coconut, orange juice and nutmeg).

While Flanagan is confident the metro will embrace the new concept, he never set out to open another bar.

But more than a year ago, while Flanagan and his wife were walking out of Wild Child post-date night, they strolled past the old Shawnee Auto Garage with a “for lease” sign out front.

“That’s when the wheels started turning,” Flanagan said. Pun intended.

Now, Hank’s is part of a growing suburban downtown with award-winning bars Drastic Measures and Wild Child nearby. Tapas bar Gilda’s is also looking to open soon at 5815 Nieman Road.

“I like when people come in and you can tell they’re genuinely excited that you’re open …” Flanagan said. “Like, ‘Wow, I’m glad this place is in my neighborhood.’ I think that makes my team proud.”

This story was originally published March 18, 2025 at 10:51 AM.

The Kansas City Star

Jenna Thompson covers retail news for The Kansas City Star. A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, she previously reported for the Lincoln Journal Star and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studied journalism and English.