Drive the stretch of Highway 50 near Route 291 this week and you'll pass three restaurants with lit signs, a Costco shell still climbing out of the ground, and enough orange construction fencing to make you wonder what you're actually allowed to walk into. That confusion is the whole story right now. Oldham Village has moved fast enough on the restaurant side that it's easy to assume the rest of the development is just as close to finished. It isn't. The part of this corner that will actually change how people spend a Saturday here, the recreation and pickleball layer, hasn't broken ground yet.
If you live near this corridor, here's the honest scorecard: what you can walk into today, and what's still just a rendering with a city approval process attached to it.
The barbecue everyone was waiting on finally has doors
Q39 opened its Lee's Summit location on August 3, 2026, and it's worth knowing this isn't a satellite outpost. At nearly 10,000 square feet and 223 seats, it's the largest Q39 location the company has built, bigger than the original Midtown Kansas City restaurant, the Overland Park spot, or the Lawrence location that opened this past March. The building sits at 240 SW Oldham Parkway, and according to Q39's own site, it's new enough that mapping apps hadn't caught up: the location is west of the Chick-fil-A near Highway 50 and 291, and "our building is so new, Apple Maps and Google Maps haven't caught up yet!"
The layout tells you this was built for volume, not just walk-in lunch traffic. The restaurant seats 223 guests across dual dining rooms, a private dining room, two bars, and outdoor dining including 74 seats on a screened patio and 24 in the open air, with a private Rob Magee Room that accommodates 40 guests and honors the late founder whose championship barbecue background built the brand. The most popular order so far is the brisket plate, with the Mr. Burns sandwich and the Pitmaster Sandwich close behind. Hours are steady seven days a week: Sunday through Thursday from 11am to 9pm, and Friday and Saturday from 11am to 10pm.
The opening also carries a bit of company history that locals may not have connected yet. Q39 started as one restaurant in Midtown Kansas City in 2014, built around the competition barbecue reputation of the late Rob Magee. Lee's Summit is now the fourth location for a brand that's expanded deliberately, not one that's chasing every open lot in the metro.
Two restaurants were already running before Q39 opened
Here's the part that's easy to miss if Q39's opening is the first thing that put Oldham Village on your radar: two other tenants have been serving food there for months.
Chick-fil-A Oldham Village opened on February 26, 2026, meaning it's been running for close to six months by the time you read this. It's a full-size location at 1001 SW Jefferson Crossing, dine-in through 10pm, with a play space built in for families. Smalls Sliders, a burger chain, opened near that same Chick-fil-A in June, so it's been open about two months. Neither of these made the kind of splash Q39's opening did this week, but both have had time to become part of the everyday rotation for people who work or live nearby.
So the current, actual state of dining at Oldham Village as of this month:
- Chick-fil-A Oldham Village, open since late February
- Smalls Sliders, open since June
- Q39, open since August 3, the newest and largest of the three
That's what's real today. Everything past that point is still under construction or still working through city approval.
The part that will actually change the corner hasn't broken ground
This is where the timeline gets interesting, because the projects still coming are the ones that would shift Oldham Village from "a place with good barbecue" to something closer to a genuine gathering spot for the area.
A Five Four Drafthouse location is planned for the development with pickleball courts, golf bays, and a bag toss area. As of early July, work crews were photographed on site building the space out, but the target opening is early 2027, not this year. Drake Development, the Overland Park firm behind the project, confirmed the concept in a social media post describing it as a fresh take on dining with scratch-made food and yard games.
Separately, the city is working through its own approval process for a large indoor recreation complex inside Oldham Village. As of early July, Lee's Summit's Parks and Recreation board was set to consider awarding a $24.1 million construction bid for a facility expected to run around 100,000 square feet with 10 sports courts, meeting space, and administrative offices. That's a city project, not a private tenant, which means it moves on a different clock entirely: bond approvals and board votes instead of a tenant simply finishing buildout and flipping the sign to open.
And on the east side of Route 291, a Costco is still rising as the anchor for what's being called East Village, with plans for additional apartments and townhomes to follow. None of that is open yet either.
Drake Development summed up the pace of the whole corridor themselves when they broke ground on both sides of 291 back in May: "Big things ahead for this corridor and the future growth of Lee's Summit."
Why restaurants beat the rec complex to the finish line
If you've watched other parts of the metro develop, this gap between what opens first and what takes longer isn't random. A single restaurant tenant controls its own construction schedule once the lease is signed. A city-funded recreation complex has to clear a bid process, a board vote, and typically a longer construction timeline for a building with 10 sports courts under one roof. A private concept like Five Four Drafthouse sits in between, dependent on its own build schedule but still answering to permitting.
That's the practical read for anyone who lives nearby and is trying to plan around this corner of town. The food is real and available now. The rec and entertainment piece, the part that would give people a reason to spend a full afternoon here rather than just grabbing dinner, is genuinely still a year or more out based on the early 2027 target for Five Four Drafthouse and the fact that the recreation complex bid was still pending city approval as of this summer.
What to actually do with this information
If you've been putting off checking out Oldham Village because you assumed it was still a construction zone, that assumption is only half true now. You can get lunch or dinner there today at any of the three open restaurants. Q39 specifically built out expanded catering and to-go service timed for football season, which is worth knowing if your fall Saturdays involve feeding a group.
If you're waiting for the pickleball courts or the rec complex to open before you make Oldham Village part of your regular routine, budget for that to be a 2027 story, not a fall 2026 one. The corridor is moving fast by construction standards. It's still not finished.
I keep half an eye on this kind of local buildout because it tells you something about how a corner of town is going to function years from now, long before the last building goes up. If you're curious about how growth like this tends to affect a specific street or subdivision nearby, or you just want a straight answer about what's actually happening near your home, reach out to Heather Brown. Get a free home valuation and let's talk about what's changing in your corner of the metro.
