Kansas City Italian restaurant once had several locations. The last one just closed
Sutera’s has closed in Gladstone.
The Italian restaurant opened at 6523 N. Oak Trafficway in 2022, shortly after owner Bruce Hamilton closed the Sutera’s location in Shawnee at 22716 Midland Drive.
Hamilton did not respond this week to a request for comment, but the restaurant’s Facebook page says Sutera’s is “permanently closed” and movers were loading up tables and chairs Monday afternoon.
The Sutera’s name dates back decades in the Kansas City restaurant industry. In 1976, Vince and Agnes Sutera opened Sutera’s Old San Francisco in the West Bottoms, in what had previously been the San Francisco Saloon and Restaurant. They served Italian-American fare: spaghetti, meatballs, pizza.
Several of their nine children subsequently opened Sutera’s locations. Charlie and his wife, Sally, took over the West Bottoms restaurant in the mid-1980s and later added a Westwood location in 2005. Two other brothers, Joe and Jeff, opened a Brookside location in 1982 on the corner where Michael Forbes now sits, and Jeff opened the Shawnee location in 2003. Brothers Jay and Jerry had one in North Kansas City. Joe and Mary Ann Sutera owned Sutera’s West in Kansas City, Kansas.
All have since closed.
Since 2015, there has been just one Sutera’s, though it was not owned by a Sutera’s family member. In 2013, longtime employee Bruce Hamilton bought the Shawnee location from Jeff Sutera. The restaurant closed in 2021. Hamilton then relocated the business to a Gladstone strip mall, still serving the same Sutera family recipes.
