On Vine Street, a Kansas City chef is building a new food community

Along one of Kansas City’s most storied avenues, a new mission is taking shape in a 140-year-old stone structure, where Chef Shanita McAfee-Bryant is working to create a new, food-based solution to urban hunger and unemployment.
Chef Shanita McAfee-Bryant has a direct connection to the legacy at Kansas City’s 18th and Vine District. Her dad, Mark McAfee, used to own a business in the area, called Riteway Magic Janitorial Supplies and Service.

“This a place that, growing up, going to work there, I used to drive by this all the time,” McAfee-Bryant said.

If the 41-year-old has her way, she too will have an important role to play here — “kind of like full circle,” she said.