India Palace

India Palace is a family-owned North Indian restaurant at 9918 W. 87th St. in Overland Park, Kansas, founded by the Choong family in 1995 and widely billed as the oldest Indian restaurant in Kansas.¹²

Description

India Palace is an Overland Park institution serving traditional North Indian cuisine, with a menu of tandoori meats, curries such as chicken tikka masala and vegetable korma, and veg/non-veg biryani.¹³ It is the founding restaurant of a long-running Kansas City-metro Indian-restaurant family and is frequently cited as the oldest Indian restaurant in the state of Kansas.² The 9918 W. 87th St. dining room has operated continuously since the mid-1990s and remains owner-connected through the Choong family.²

Ownership and history

India Palace is the original Kansas anchor of the Choong family’s Indian-restaurant dynasty. Founder Gurdev Choong grew up in Punjab, working the family’s farmland with his three brothers after their father’s death; he later went to sea transporting cargo across India, East Africa, the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean, and worked construction in Dubai and as a farm laborer in Greece before immigrating to Boston.² His brothers joined him there, working in restaurants from fast food to fine dining until they saved enough to open their own small restaurant — India Palace in Boston’s Union Square.²

The brothers then left Boston for Kansas City, opening India Palace in Overland Park in 1995.² Its success seeded a family of restaurants across the metro, including Bombay Cafe (Overland Park), India Palace (Lawrence), and Swagat Fine Indian Cuisine in the Northland (2002).²⁴ Talented cooks who came up through the family’s kitchens went on to open several other Indian restaurants around Kansas City, making India Palace a foundational node in the region’s Indian dining history.² The next generation, including Komal Choong, now helps carry the business forward.²

Links

• Profile: https://india-palace.goto-where.com/
• Online order: https://www.toasttab.com/local/order/india-palace-9918-w-87th-st

Sources

Disputes

None on record.

See also

• Swagat Fine Indian Cuisine — sister restaurant in the Northland (Zona Rosa), opened 2002 by the same Choong family.

Footnotes

1. Yelp — India Palace, 9918 W 87th St, Overland Park, KS (updated May 2026, 264 reviews, 105 photos). https://www.yelp.com/biz/india-palace-overland-park — asserts: address, Indian cuisine, currently open with recent reviews. ↩ ↩²

2. “Meet Komal Choong of Swagat Fine Indian Cuisine,” VoyageKC Magazine. https://voyagekc.com/interview/meet-komal-choong-of-swagat-fine-indian-cuisine/ — asserts: Choong family story, Gurdev Choong and brothers, India Palace Boston (Union Square), India Palace Overland Park founded 1995, Bombay Cafe, India Palace Lawrence, Swagat 2002, India Palace as oldest Indian restaurant in Kansas, dynasty legacy. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

3. India Palace profile / hours. https://india-palace.goto-where.com/ — asserts: address, hours, North Indian menu (chicken tikka masala, biryani, vegetable korma), active operation. ↩

4. “Passage to India,” The Pitch. https://www.thepitchkc.com/passage-to-india-2/ — asserts: Gurdev Choong founded the India Palace restaurants in Overland Park and Lawrence before opening Swagat. ↩