For roughly a decade, the second floor of the old Macy's at 71st and Mission was a dark rectangle most of us had trained ourselves to walk past on the way to Story or the clock tower. This summer, half your neighbors are eating dinner up there. If you live in Prairie Village and feel like the Shops are busier at 7 p.m. than you remember them being in years, you are not imagining it. The rhythm of a Tuesday evening here has genuinely shifted, and the shift has a direction: up, and a hundred feet south.
The thesis for the summer is simple. Three restaurant openings, one grocery move, and one long-dormant floor have rearranged where the crowd sits between five and nine. The clock tower is still the clock tower. But the block reads differently now, and a resident who's been out of the loop since Memorial Day will want the map.
What Actually Changed At 71st And Mission
The single biggest change is vertical. Big Grove Brewery, an Iowa-based taproom and restaurant, took over a newly redeveloped upper-floor space at the Shops of Prairie Village at the site of the former Macy's department store, with a Hen House grocery store planned for the ground floor. Big Grove opened on the second floor of the old Macy's in Prairie Village in late May, and its presence has done something no single restaurant opening should be able to do on its own: it's given people a reason to look up at a corner of the center they'd been ignoring.
A few practical notes for residents who haven't been yet:
- The Prairie Village location is Big Grove's first in the wider Kansas City metro; the company is almost entirely based in Iowa with one location in Omaha.
- The menu covers salads, sandwiches, pastas and burgers, with appetizers like chips and queso, focaccia, fried cheese curds and charcuterie, plus beer flights, wine, cocktails and mocktails.
- The taproom held a three-day hiring drive in early April to fill more than 100 positions before opening. That headcount is a decent proxy for how much traffic they expect to move through the space.
The last point is the one worth sitting with. A hundred hires isn't a wine-bar footprint. It's a "we intend to fill this patio at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday" footprint, and on the evenings I've walked through, they are.
The center of gravity between 5 and 9 p.m. has moved thirty feet up and a hundred feet south. Everything else about your summer here is the same.
That's the honest read. The pool is the pool. Harmon Park is Harmon Park. Sunday morning at the Farmers Market is Sunday morning at the Farmers Market. What's new is the vertical axis of the block.
Three Blocks South, Corinth Square And Corinth Quarter Are Doing Their Own Thing
Walk south on Mission and the second story of the story is at 83rd Street. Two openings there give residents a reason to break routine.
Casa Ama is the one longtime customers of the shuttered Salty Iguana have been watching for. When Salty Iguana closed in Prairie Village a year ago, many longtime customers lost a place that carried a sense of nostalgia; one of them was Robin Krause, a Prairie Village native and owner of local healthy eatery Billie's Grocery, and with her new concept Casa Ama the hope is that customers can get part of that experience back. The restaurant debuts at Prairie Village's Corinth Square shopping center in a space on the east side, just off 83rd Street and Mission Road. The menu centers on Mexican flavors with chilies, beans, charred vegetables and bright citrus, positioning as "modern Mexican" but pulling from other cultures too, including a hummus appetizer topped with birria.
Flower Child is the August entry. Arizona-based Flower Child is officially opening its new restaurant at the Corinth Quarter shopping center in Prairie Village, with an opening date set for Aug. 11. The space is at Corinth Quarter, just off 83rd Street and Mission Road, near a long-standing Panera Bread and Italian sandwich shop La Fetta, which plans to open later this year. Menu signatures include an avocado Caesar salad, spicy coconut green curry and a black bean falafel wrap, with sides like sweet potato fries, gluten-free mac and cheese and cauliflower risotto.
Here is where the openings actually sit, because the three centers get conflated constantly:
| Opening | Center | Location | Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Grove Brewery | The Shops of Prairie Village | Upper floor, former Macy's at 71st and Mission | Opened late May 2026 |
| Casa Ama | Corinth Square | East side, near 83rd and Mission | Spring 2026 |
| Flower Child | Corinth Quarter | Near 83rd and Mission | Aug. 11, 2026 |
| La Fetta | Corinth Quarter | Near Flower Child | Later in 2026 |
| Hen House | The Shops of Prairie Village | Ground floor, former Macy's | Forthcoming |
Read that column together and you can see why the resident experience of "going to the Village" feels different this month than it did last September. Four restaurants and a grocery store are opening within a roughly one-mile stretch of Mission Road, and three of them are anchoring corners that had gone quiet.
What Hasn't Moved
The mistake a lot of the coverage makes is treating this summer as a rupture. It isn't. The rituals that make Prairie Village Prairie Village are still exactly where you left them.
- The Art Show still owns Memorial Day weekend. The Prairie Village Art Show brings artists, live music, local food, family activities, and expanded outdoor gathering spaces to The Shops of Prairie Village May 29–31. As the second-oldest art show in the Kansas City metro, it has become a tradition for generations of families, collectors, artists and neighbors, with more than 15,000 guests expected across the weekend.
- The featured artist did something specifically local. For this year's show, Sharon Sudduth created a painting featuring the Prairie Village clock tower overflowing with flowers, with many blooms inspired by photos she took of the floral planters at the Shops, alongside sunflowers and lantana as a nod to her Kansas roots.
- Merchant participation stitched old and new together. Guests could enjoy special menus all weekend from Tavern in the Village, Caffetteria, Minsky's Pizza, Penny's in the Village and Scratch Gourmet Kitchen. New for 2026, Big Grove Brewery participated with a mobile bar near booth 100 along Mission Lane on Saturday and Sunday, serving Easy Eddy, Neighborhood Beer and Citrus Surfer.
- Small anniversaries mattered. Playa Bowls celebrated its one-year anniversary with a prize wheel featuring discounts, samples and a chance to win a free bowl or smoothie.
- The clock tower is still doing its job. A Kickoff KC evening ran under the Clock Tower on Tuesday, June 16, from 4 to 8 p.m., a family-friendly night of soccer-inspired activities, live entertainment, games and giveaways.
- The July 4 pie contest still happens. That's the one line I'd underline for anyone new to the neighborhood who thought the redevelopment might have swept the old traditions with it. It didn't.
The Shops have been owned by the same landlord long enough that this balance is by design, not accident. The expanded courtyard and redevelopment reflect First Washington Realty's long-term commitment to the Shops of Prairie Village, which the firm has continued to invest in as a neighborhood hub for shopping, dining, events and everyday connection since acquiring the property in 2015.
The Resident's Read
If you live here, three practical things follow from all of this.
Parking is going to get worse before it gets better. The Hen House swap on the ground floor of the former Macy's isn't finished, the upper-floor patio is drawing people it wasn't drawing last summer, and the courtyard reconfiguration is still settling in. This is a "park at the north end and walk" summer, not a "circle until a spot opens near Story" summer.
The best patio window has shifted. The upper-floor patio at Big Grove sits in the building's own shadow after 6 p.m., which matters more in July than the marketing copy suggests. If you like a shaded outdoor drink and haven't been up there, that's the specific hour to try.
Saturday morning still belongs to the market, not the openings. The Prairie Village Farmers Market brings local growers and producers together at the Prairie Village Shops on 71st Street on Saturday mornings. Nothing about the new openings changes that rhythm. Coffee, produce, walk home, come back at six for whichever of the new spots you're testing that week.
A quick out-of-town-guest routing that actually works this summer: Farmers Market Saturday morning at the clock tower, coffee and a walk over to Corinth Square to see the Casa Ama room, lunch or an afternoon bowl at Playa Bowls or Scratch, dinner upstairs at Big Grove with a stop back at the tower on the way out. That itinerary didn't exist last August. It exists now.
The neighborhood-level takeaway is worth stating plainly. Prairie Village spent a decade with a dark upper floor at its most important intersection. That floor is now the most animated part of the block between five and nine, and the openings three blocks south at Corinth Square and Corinth Quarter are pulling their own weight. The clock tower rituals, the pie contest, the Art Show, the market, the pool: unchanged. The evening map: rewritten.
If the shifts at the Shops have you looking at your own block a little differently, or wondering how a summer like this one lands in Prairie Village sale prices, the team at Blake & Associates tracks this market at the street level and would be glad to walk you through what any of it means for your home. Get Your Free Home Valuation and let's talk about your corner of the Village.
