This profile is in active compilation — some details are awaiting a cited source.

Buffalo State Pizza Co. is a Kansas City-local, owner-operated New York-style pizza company with two locations — downtown Overland Park and the Crossroads arts district — run by co-owners and trained chefs Philippe Lechevin and Steve Robson.1

Description

Buffalo State Pizza Co. serves honest, old-school New York-style pizza — not deep dish, not cracker crust, not hyper-artisanal — from a landmark 6,400-square-foot building in downtown Overland Park. The concept is rooted in approachability: big slices, a full bar, and room for live entertainment alongside the kind of pizza that brings people together rather than performing for them.2

The downtown Overland Park location, opened in October 2025, occupies the historic Ford building at 7932 Santa Fe Drive — a circa-1918 structure that Lechevin and Robson chose to purchase outright rather than absorb a rent increase at their previous OP address. The $400,000 build-out added a proper dining room, a full bar, a dedicated to-go area, and a mezzanine level seating 50, funded in part through a Honeycomb Credit crowdfunding campaign that raised $62,942 from 51 local investors.1

Their second location at 1815 Wyandotte St in the Crossroads opened in late 2017 and remains open alongside the new OP flagship.1

Ownership and history

Philippe Lechevin and Steve Robson are trained chefs who first crossed paths in 2008 while both working for food service company Compass Group USA. They later collaborated under Aramark at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. In 2013, Lechevin found a restaurant listing for a downtown Overland Park pizza shop online at 2 a.m. and called the broker immediately. The sellers required the buyer to honor the existing Papa Keno’s licensing agreement, so Lechevin and Robson ran the location under that brand for the duration of the agreement.1

When the Papa Keno’s license expired around 2019, they created their own brand: Buffalo State Pizza Co., named as “a nod to the official state animal of Kansas.” The rebrand freed them to control the menu, pricing, and identity. In 2017, before the rebrand, they had already expanded to a Crossroads location at 1815 Wyandotte St, signaling confidence in the concept.1

The business has built notable staff loyalty — approximately 30% of employees at the time of the 2025 relocation had tenures of nine years or more, a meaningful indicator of workplace stability for an independent restaurant.1

Sources

Disputes

None at this time.

Footnotes

  1. https://www.startlandnews.com/2025/10/buffalo-state-pizza-overland-park/ — Startland News. Asserts: owners Philippe Lechevin and Steve Robson; founding history from Papa Keno’s (2013) through rebrand (~2019); Crossroads expansion (2017); Santa Fe Dr purchase; $400K build-out; Honeycomb Credit crowdfunding; staff tenure figures. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. https://www.buffalostatepizza.com/ — Official website. Asserts: two locations (Overland Park, Crossroads/Kansas City); New York-style pizza concept. ↩

See also

  • Registry
  • Owner-And-History-Research-Toolchain
Categories
  • Kansas City–owned
  • Overland Park Ks