Bacaro Primo

Bacaro Primo is a locally owned Italian restaurant in the Crestwood Shops on the edge of Brookside, opened in 2023 by Kansas City restaurateurs Todd Schulte and Cory Dannehl (the team behind Earl’s Premier). Built around the city’s first hand-sliced “salami bar,” it pairs imported and domestic salumi with wood-fired pizzas, fresh pasta, and an Italian wine and amaro program — Italian-inspired but driven by Midwestern seasonality.

Description

Bacaro Primo is an independent, locally owned Italian restaurant located in the Crestwood Shops at 323 E 55th Street, on the edge of Kansas City’s Brookside area. It occupies the former Café Europa space and opened in spring 2023. The concept centers on what its owners billed as Kansas City’s first “salami bar” — a hand-slicer cuts imported and domestic cured meats to order for customizable charcuterie boards, with diners choosing salumi by name in the same spirit that the owners’ oyster bar, Earl’s Premier, lets guests order oysters by variety.¹²

Beyond the salumi program, the menu features wood-fired pizzas, fresh pastas, and dishes such as steak Fiorentina, described by the restaurant as “Italian-inspired but driven by Midwestern seasonality” and built on imported Italian products sourced through a dedicated importer.³ The beverage program emphasizes an Italian wine list, amari, and negronis served in what the restaurant calls a “modern, yet quaint dining room.”³ Local press has framed it as a special-occasion neighborhood spot, with the bucatini and the pork tenderloin among the dishes singled out in reviews.⁴

The name nods to the Venetian bacaro — a traditional small wine bar serving cicchetti (small plates) and local wine — though the restaurant’s execution is explicitly Italian-American and Midwestern-sourced rather than strictly Venetian.

Ownership and history

Bacaro Primo is owned by Todd Schulte and Cory Dannehl, longtime friends and business partners who first opened the East Coast–style oyster and seafood restaurant Earl’s Premier in 2022. Bacaro Primo followed the next year, opening in spring 2023 in the Crestwood Shops.¹² The same ownership group has since expanded to include the market-café Earl’s Provisions and the coastal Mexican restaurant Sea Capitán, making Schulte and Dannehl one of Kansas City’s most active independent restaurant groups.⁵

Schulte serves as the culinary and creative force of the partnership and has been a fixture of the Kansas City restaurant scene for more than two decades. He was the original owner of Happy Gillis Café + Hangout in Columbus Park and of Genessee Royale Bistro in the West Bottoms, both well-regarded independent neighborhood spots, before partnering with Dannehl on the Earl’s portfolio. He is characterized in local coverage by “obsessive sourcing, design-forward spaces, and a neighborhood-first instinct.”²⁵

The restaurant is independently owned and operated with no corporate parent or franchise affiliation; it is part of a locally held, owner-operated KC restaurant group.¹²⁵

Links

• Website: https://bacaroprimo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bacaroprimo/
• Phone: (816) 381-6084

See also

• brookside
• Registry

Sources

Footnotes

1. Kansas City Magazine — “Todd Schulte is opening KC’s first salami bar this spring” — https://kansascitymag.com/todd-schulte-is-opening-kcs-first-salami-bar-this-spring/ — accessed 2026-05-30 ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Kansas City Magazine — “KC Restaurateurs Todd Schulte and Cory Dannehl Are Opening A Restaurant & A Market This Summer” — https://kansascitymag.com/kc-restauranteurs-todd-schulte-and-cory-dannehl-are-opening-a-restaurant-a-market-this-summer-heres-what-we-know/ — accessed 2026-05-30 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Bacaro Primo — official site (About) — https://bacaroprimo.com/about/ — accessed 2026-05-30 ↩ ↩²

4. The Infatuation — “Bacaro Primo” review (Kansas City) — https://www.theinfatuation.com/kansas-city/reviews/bacaro-primo — accessed 2026-05-30 ↩

5. The Pitch — “Four Inane Questions with restaurateur Todd Schulte” — https://www.thepitchkc.com/four-inane-questions-with-restaurateur-todd-schulte/ — accessed 2026-05-30 ↩ ↩² ↩³