All-you-can-eat Asian buffet opens in Kansas City, finally. Saturday is crab leg night
A Chinese buffet opening in a strip mall isn’t usually the type of event that drips with anticipation.
But in Waldo, they’ve been waiting a long time for Joy Wok to debut the sequel to its Overland Park location. The owners signed the lease for the space at 8406 Wornall Road all the way back in 2021. A “grand opening” billboard went up down the street the following spring.
But 2022 passed without any unlimited crab rangoon or kung pao chicken. So did half of 2023. In Waldo neighborhood Facebook groups, residents shared clues of potential progress (“I saw someone outside with building materials last week”) and vented about being “Wok blocked” — denied their buffet. By the time the owners announced they would officially open July 31, some had begun to lose faith. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” several users wrote.
Joy Wok made good on its word, though. As of Monday at 11 a.m., it was open for business and stocked with more than 150 buffet items, including seafood, sushi, pho and desserts.
“It’s kind of a Chinese-Japanese-American combination,” said manager Jennifer Zhang. “An Asian buffet with seafood.”
There is also a bar, a hibachi grill and two dining rooms.
The weekday lunch buffet, which runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., is $12.99. The weekday dinner buffet (4 p.m. to close) is $16.99. There is a sliding price scale for kids between the ages of 2 and 10. A 2-year-old’s buffet lunch is $3, a 3-year-old’s is $3.75, and so on, all the way up to $9 for a 10-year-old.
All-you-can-eat crab legs will be part of the seafood buffet on Saturday nights, Zhang said; dinner on those nights is $29.99.
Hours are 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
The full menu is also available for carryout. Order online at joywokwornall.com or call 816-839-9881.
