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Today’s newsletter is 995 words — a 4-minute read.

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.

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 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.

Dig deeper

Don't let the 80° October days fool you. Kansas City's leaves should hit peak color in only a few weeks, according to a map on Explore Fall.

Why it matters: KC's leaves will look like that for only a week or so. Miss the window and you're looking at bare branches until spring.

Zoom in: The map has the metro's leaves hitting their brightest between Nov. 5 and 10.

• That's a few weeks behind the rest of Missouri, where color usually peaks around mid-October. State foresters say central and northern Missouri got enough rain this year to expect strong color.
• It lines up with the Kansas side. The Kansas Forest Service says the northeast corner of the state peaks from late October to early November, and the trees to look for are white oaks and maples.

Zoom out: Fall color is expected across most of the country by mid-October, and it's sweeping south from there.

• On Oct. 16, the brightest color is projected across the northern Rockies, the Upper Midwest and northern New England.
• By Oct. 30, a broad band from the central Rockies to the East Coast should be at or near peak.

Yes, but: Weather could scramble the timeline. A strong El Niño could raise temperatures and delay some peak colors, according to the National Weather Service.

• Drought can mute colors, but the KC area is mostly drought-free right now, so that's one worry you can skip.

State of play: If you've looked out your window lately, you already know most trees are still green.

• The Missouri Department of Conservation's latest KC report says cottonwoods, walnuts and elms are showing the first touches of yellow, and the sunflowers and goldenrods are still going in ditches and plantings.
• Those brown honey locusts you've seen along some streets? That's a webworm outbreak, not fall.

If you go: The Department of Conservation's pick is a drive along Highways 45 and 224, which follow the Missouri River northwest toward Weston.

More spots to go

🏠 City Union Mission, a homeless shelter that's served KC since 1924, plans to grow its bed capacity by nearly 40% by 2027 as demand climbs, and it's counting on private donations to pay for it. (KMBC)

🌳 The Giving Grove, a KC nonprofit that plants free-to-pick fruit orchards on vacant lots, has spread to 17 cities and is now fielding requests from San Francisco, Minneapolis and New York. (KCUR)

🏘️ Chalet Manor, a 64-unit affordable complex in KCK's Argentine neighborhood, just closed on $21.3 million in financing for a full rehab, with construction starting now and all units staying affordable. (The Business Journal)

Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones lost his helmet, found himself surrounded by Raiders and clearly had something to say during Sunday's 30-27 win in Las Vegas. What it was, we'll let you decide.

Caption this photo: Reply to this email with your best one-liner for the photo above, and we'll publish our favorites.

💭 Abbey's thought bubble: My face when I'm woken up at 3am by my cats destroying my apartment.

Show us what you've got.

🎤 Abbey went to StorySLAMs at Knuckleheads last night. Loved it. Have you been?

👋🏼 Travis is off today.

Thanks to Chloe Gonzales for editing this newsletter.