The tiny pasta shop everyone in KC is chasing
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Definitely better than the Kraft Mac & Cheese I make at home. Photo: Abbey Higginbotham/Axios
Zero Zero Handmade Pasta started as a pandemic hobby. Now the 13-seat Westside shop has some of the most sought-after reservations in Kansas City.
The big picture: Zero Zero is KC's entry in a national trend of restaurants that stay small on purpose and let demand do the marketing, and it's working.
Flashback: Zero Zero began in 2021 as a weekly pasta delivery. Mitch Fagan, then a medical student, made the pasta at home, and his fiancée Leah Steinberg sold it online.
- The orders kept selling out, and a year later they opened a Westside shop for take-home pasta and sauces.
Zoom in: Nearly everything on the plate comes from within an hour of the kitchen. The flour is stone-milled at Marion Milling in the West Bottoms from heritage Midwest wheat; the eggs come from Campo Lindo Farm in Lathrop; and the sausage is from Barham Family Farm in Kearney.
- The menu has four pastas, $21 to $24, and two never change: the spicy vodka radiatori with stracciatella and Parmesan, and the lumache alla norcina with Barham's sausage, mushrooms and white wine cream.
- The other pastas rotate with the season.
How to get in: Indoor tables open on Tock at 9am exactly 30 days ahead.
- Fagan says to have the page open before 9am and refresh the second the clock turns. A few seconds late and they're gone.
- The 20-seat patio opens the morning of, usually between 8am and 9am, weather permitting. If that doesn't work, join Tock's notify list and book the second a cancellation email lands.
- Once you're in, you get 90 minutes, and canceling within 12 hours costs $50 a person.
The intrigue: Getting in has turned into a group project. One woman turned to the internet after a month of trying and got dozens of Facebook replies, from refreshing the reservation page a couple of minutes early to just hoping for a miracle.
- Satire account Chipotle on Main summed up the mood with a fake headline: a couple staying together only for their Zero Zero reservation.
💭 Abbey's thought bubble: I lost the 9am race for my birthday dinner after 30 seconds and booked lunch instead. The lumache and the gricia were cooked perfectly al dente, the sauce clung to every noodle, and I still had enough to take home.
- My only gripe is the room. Limited seats means you're sharing elbow room with strangers, but that's the tradeoff for a place this small.
If you go: Lunch runs Friday through Sunday from 11am to 3:0pm, and dinner runs Tuesday through Saturday from 5pm to 1opm.