If you tried to park behind the old Macy's this spring, you already know something changed at the Shops of Prairie Village. What might be less obvious is what actually changed and what didn't. This summer's headline isn't "new restaurants opened." It's that the center swapped a chunk of its small, independently owned retail for a smaller number of much larger food and drink operators, while every ritual that makes this shopping center feel like Prairie Village's living room stayed exactly where it was.
How a Basement Fire Rewired a Shopping Center
The domino chain traces back to early 2025, when a transformer fire broke out in a basement near the former Macy's building. That triggered a longer stretch of construction, including work on the courtyard that blocked entrances for extended periods, and left some retailers describing months where foot traffic dried up almost entirely. The shop's troubles date from a transformer fire in early 2025 in a basement near the former Macy's, followed by a second phase of construction with the courtyard that blocked off entrances. Some tenants now expect parking issues to continue with the popularity of Big Grove, the new Hen House, and the replacement tenant for the current Hen House space.
That disruption is the actual mechanism behind everything that follows. It didn't just create an opening for new tenants. It made staying open difficult enough that at least one long-running boutique decided the fight wasn't worth it anymore.
What Left
Scoobie, a women's boutique that had operated at the Shops for seven years, closed its doors and shut down its online store this year. Owner Sarah Jabbour said her store was impacted by 17 months of ongoing construction that "ultimately made it impossible to continue as a brick-and-mortar store." That is not a business that lost a lease fight or got outcompeted on price. It's a business that couldn't survive over a year of blocked entrances and thinned-out foot traffic, in a category, women's apparel, that depends on people walking by and deciding to come in.
What Arrived, and at What Scale
Here's the part that makes this more than a simple churn story. The tenant filling the largest chunk of that redeveloped space isn't a boutique. It's Big Grove Brewery, an Iowa-based brand with locations across four Iowa cities plus Omaha, taking a 13,000-square-foot footprint on the site's south side. The restaurant and brewery opened in a newly redeveloped space on the south side of the Shops of Prairie Village, just off 71st Street and Mission Road, on a site previously occupied by Macy's. Big Grove kicked off the space with a grand opening featuring giveaways and children's activities, and its soft opening two days earlier generated five figures in sales.
That's not a like-for-like replacement. A single-owner apparel shop closed, and in roughly the same footprint, a multi-state brewing company with national production rankings moved in. Big Grove was founded in Solon, Iowa, in 2013 as a 3.5-barrel brewhouse and now ranks in the top 75 in barrel production nationally. The Shops didn't just refill a vacancy. They upgraded their anchor tenant class from specialty retail to a regional food-and-beverage operator with real capital behind it.
The rest of the summer's moves follow a similar logic, just at smaller scale:
- Scratch Gourmet Kitchen relocated into the former Story. space next to its original spot, and used the move to expand its bar program. The team added roughly 30 new spirits, and its wine program, already featuring roughly 180 bottles, is expanding by another 15 to 20.
- Frankie Pickles, a weekend seafood pop-up from chef Brandon West and partner Sheena Nicholls, took over Scratch's vacated original space. The menu focuses on forward-thinking seafood rooted in Southern flavors, with dishes like cheddar chive lobster rolls, catfish and grits, and jerk-marinated red snapper.
- Clairvaux, a locally owned shop, relocated in from the Shops at Fairway after six years there. Founder Joni Johnson wanted more room and a center with more traffic and more of a community hub feel.
- GolfTRK, an indoor golf brand, is planning a flagship location and its corporate headquarters on the upper level, just west of Big Grove. It's aiming for a summer opening in a spot that will serve as a blueprint for future franchise locations. The company originally scouted a smaller, nearby unit. GolfTRK was originally going to take a 6,700-square-foot space at 7064 Mission, slightly smaller, and there's been no word yet on whether another tenant has signed for that space.
The In-and-Out Ledger
| Business | Status as of August 2026 | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Big Grove Brewery | Opened May 21 | 13,000 sq ft, former Macy's building, 7060 Mission Rd |
| Frankie Pickles | Opened early May | Weekend pop-up in Scratch's former original space |
| Clairvaux | Relocated in | From Shops at Fairway, 3944 W. 69th Terrace |
| Scratch Gourmet Kitchen | Relocated within center | Into former Story. space, expanded bar program |
| GolfTRK | Expected by end of summer | Flagship and HQ, upper level near Big Grove |
| Hen House | Expected September | Moving into lower level of former Macy's building |
| Scoobie | Closed | After 7 years, cited construction disruption |
Read down that list and the pattern is hard to miss. Every name in the "in" column either arrived from elsewhere or expanded its footprint. The one name that left was the smallest, most locally rooted operation on the list.
What Hasn't Moved an Inch
Here's the contrast that makes this a story worth paying attention to instead of just another retail roundup: while the building footprint reshuffled, the community's actual summer calendar didn't budge at all.
The Prairie Village Art Show ran its 69th consecutive year over the last weekend in May, and it is still, by its own description, the second oldest art show in Kansas City, with an origin story tied to the same team that developed the Country Club Plaza. This year's edition drew its usual crowd: the Shops host 100 artists every year, and more than 15,000 people typically attend over the weekend. The only sign that the retail turnover had reached the event calendar at all was two small additions: a Cocina Club KC booth powered by Scratch, and a Big Grove mobile bar pouring house beers near the art booths. Everything else, the clock tower, the artist tents, the Saturday crowd, ran the way it always has.
The Fourth of July brought the same continuity. VillageFest's pie contest, one of the city's longest-running small traditions, kept its usual rules this year: pies had to be entered by 8:30 a.m. at City Hall, with judging beginning at 9 a.m. and winners announced at 10:30. Pies must be made from scratch, with no pre-mixes, canned filling, or frozen crusts allowed. That rule has presumably been enforced since long before anyone was arguing about parking near the old Macy's.
What's Still Ahead This Season
Two pieces of this reshuffle are still in motion as of today. Hen House is continuing to operate at its current location while it prepares to open its new store on the lower level of the former Macy's building. Hen House expects to open its new store in September and will continue operating at its current location until then. Once that move happens, expect a fresh round of the same parking conversation that's been running all summer.
And if you're looking for something on the calendar that hasn't been touched by any of this, the Prairie Village Jazz Festival is set for September 12, keeping its long-standing spot on the local festival circuit alongside events like A Taste of Leawood the same weekend.
The Actual Takeaway for Anyone Who Lives Here
The honest version of this summer's story isn't "the Shops got a glow-up." It's that a fire and 17 months of construction pushed out at least one small, locally owned business that couldn't absorb the disruption, while attracting operators with more capital and more locations elsewhere to take their place. That's not necessarily bad for the center's foot traffic or its evening energy. It is a different kind of shopping center than the one that existed before the fire, with fewer standalone specialty shops and more large-format food and drink anchors setting the tone after 5 p.m.
If you've lived in Prairie Village long enough to remember the Shops before any of this started, that shift is worth noticing even if you never buy a single beer at Big Grove or set foot in GolfTRK's simulator bays. It changes what your neighborhood's front door looks like on a Tuesday night.
We track these shifts closely because they tend to show up in home values before they show up in headlines. If you're curious how these changes at the Shops are landing in nearby sale prices, or you just want a second opinion on where the neighborhood is headed next, Bash KC can walk you through it, along with more on Prairie Village's neighborhood profile and a free home valuation if you're weighing your own next move.
