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Sixth and Wakarusa loses another business

There's one less place to get a steak in Lawrence these days.

H&H Bar and Grill, 4931 W. Sixth Street, closed its doors for good recently.

The massive restaurant at Sixth and Wakarusa streets used to be the home to the Hereford House before that higher-end dining concept proved to be unsuccessful in Lawrence.

Last summer Hereford House owner Rod Anderson teamed up with some partners to open the more casual H&H Bar and Grill concept.

Anderson on Thursday confirmed that concept also wasn't successful enough to keep the doors open. A sign on the door thanked patrons for their past support, but said the restaurant was currently closed.

There are no plans to reopen it.

"No, we're done," Anderson said.

Anderson said his company - which continues to operate the venerable Hereford House steakhouses in the Kansas City area - doesn't have any plans to be in the Lawrence market.

He also said he wasn't much interested in reliving why the location never panned out.
Previously, though, some businesses in the shopping center had lamented the delay in approval for a new Wal-Mart that is being built just across the street from the shopping center. The discount center was expected to be a major traffic generator for the intersection.

The Wal-Mart project was hotly contested and ended up the subject of a lawsuit that caused a multi-year delay. The wait, however, is almost over for those businesses expecting to benefit from being neighborly to the world's largest retailer. Construction is well underway on the store. We hope Wal-Mart officials will be able to give us an updated timeline for opening the store shortly.

The shopping center also has a large opening where Googols of Fun used to be. That children's play center closed recently, and reopened as a preschool near Rockledge Road and McDonald Drive.

So - depending on how you look at it - opportunity abounds at that intersection. Developers who control the northeast corner of the intersection have previously said a CVS drug store is strongly interested in the intersection.

So, will Sixth and Wakarusa soon become the star intersection it once promised to be? Or, will it continue to be more sizzle than steak?