A Kansas City Staycation

Hi friends! Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy Chiefs Superbowl win to all who celebrate. We are crazy excited about the win. We sure love our Chiefs in this town. As for Valentine’s Day, Tom and I celebrated by taking a Kansas City staycation at the Country Club Plaza a couple of weekends ago.
I had big plans for bookstore browsing and neighborhood exploring but I’ll be honest, the agenda turned out to be mainly of eating and drinking. 🙂 Here are the details.
Where we stayed
We stayed at The Raphael Hotel. The Raphael is a boutique hotel in a historic building on the Country Club Plaza. It used to be owned by a small, local group but is now part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection.
We stayed at The Raphael once, many years, ago and I’ve always wanted to go back. We booked a room with a Plaza view, and since it’s the 100-year anniversary of the Plaza, the Plaza lights were left on for six extra weeks and so were still on for our stay.



Where We Ate
On our first night we walked across the bridge from the Raphael to The Capital Grille for dinner. The food, drinks, and service were all wonderful.






On Saturday morning we walked over to The Granfalloon to watch KU play and grab some brunch. My breakfast was served in a skillet (fun!) and Tom said his biscuits and gravy were great. Our servers were wonderful too.
On Saturday night we walked to Stock Hill just south of the Plaza and sat at the bar. We’ve been to Stock Hill before but my friend Kate recently told me how much she loves eating at the bar there and since we’re big fans of eating at the bar when it’s just the two of us, we decided to try it out.
Stock Hill’s bar is a big oval, making it great for people-watching. While we were there a jazz trio set up to play which made everything more festive. As you can see I’m all about the atmosphere, but Stock Hill’s food is wonderful too. (I added Stock Hill to my Kansas City Guide here.)



When we got back to The Raphael we decided to sit by one of their firepits out front (we got great weather that weekend). We chatted with another couple who lives very near us and was also on a Kansas City staycation to celebrate their anniversary.
On Sunday morning we slept in and then hit up The Classic Cup for breakfast before we headed home.



I shared more pics and videos on IG if you’re interested. They’re saved to a KC Staycation highlight.
Thanks for letting me take you along!
P.S. A super simple winter checklist and six mysteries for winter reading.
While we live in the DC ‘burbs, my husband is from the KC area, Johnson County, so it was wonderful to see all of your gorgeous pictures of The Plaza and places we’ve been. Beautiful! Go Chiefs!
So glad you enjoyed the pics, Marilyn! Thanks for being a reader. Go Chiefs!
I grew up in south KC Mo and once or twice a year we come back to visit. We have stayed at the Raphael often and last December we did splurge for one night as it’s so expensive now. But boy were we disappointed in the way they are now…so different post covid. Certainly not how they used to be especially for an Autograph Collection Hotel. But we love the plaza of course and now that we come as tourists we’ve visited more things than we did when I lived there. We will have to try Stock Hill. If you ever want a close getaway come to Oklahoma City and stay downtown. So much to see and do now.
If life takes us to Oklahoma City I’ll remember that, Nanci. Thanks for the recommendation!