{"id":221311,"date":"2026-05-05T23:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/221311\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T23:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:41:11","slug":"times-square-opening-closure-stunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/221311\/","title":{"rendered":"Times Square Opening &#038; Closure Stunt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1240\" height=\"764\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Kitchen-and-Koctails-Exterior-Photo-by-Lauren-Drewes-Daniels.jpg\" class=\"article-thumbnail-image wp-post-image\" alt=\"the exterior of kitchen and kocktails\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tKitchen and Koctails is spreading its wings. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Photo by Lauren Drewes Daniels<\/p>\n<p>It was the tease that had Dallas shook this week: <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThanks for all of the years of support, reservations, and for allowing us to Welcome You Home. It\u2019s been a good run. Respectfully, tomorrow at 8 a.m. more details will come\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kitchenkocktailsusa.com\/\">Kitchen + Kocktails<\/a> owner Kevin Kelley posted this elusive message on <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DX6wBNVkfqe\/\">Instagram<\/a> yesterday, many thought it was a soft announcement of a closure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey definitely closing the way they been spam texting prior guests to come there,\u201d commented Instagram user @bribrigoddess. Others wondered if this was another April Fool\u2019s Day they missed.<\/p>\n<p>Sign up for the Food Alerts newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n<p>THANK YOU!<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re all set.<\/p>\n<p>CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>But actually, it was a defining marketing choice for the Dallas-born concept. Because of this message, all eyes were on this elevated Southern comfort-food restaurant when it announced the opening of its newest location in the heart of Times Square in New York City.<\/p>\n<p>How\u2019s that for an Uno reverse?<\/p>\n<p>The Times Square location will be opening sometime in summer 2026, as hinted at in the announcement. A VIP event to celebrate the opening will be coming soon as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kitchen + Kocktails opened its first location in Dallas in May of 2020. It survived the pandemic and went on to expand in Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Philadelphia, and most recently New York City and Boston.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The concept was founded by the self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur and former litigation attorney Kevin Kelley, who founded the Kelley Lawn Firm here in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While Kelley was living abroad in France, he missed the flavors of home, which was the catalyst for this vision: a restaurant in a prime location where we can feel good about ourselves and drink great cocktails and soul food.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now, Kitchen + Kocktails is a celebrated destination for soul food in Dallas and across the country. It\u2019s not consistently on the list of <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasobserver.com\/food-drink\/most-booked-dallas-restaurants-march-2026-40660814\/\">most-booked restaurants in Dallas<\/a> for nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And despite what many diners seemed to think about the pre-announcement, this hotspot isn\u2019t going anywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Congrats and well-played. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kitchen and Koctails is spreading its wings. Photo by Lauren Drewes Daniels It was the tease that had&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64,32518],"class_list":["post-221311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-openings-closings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}