I’ve been a restaurant guy all my life. And now, after 39 years, I’m moving on.

I did it old-school. I started out as a busboy at Homestead Country Club when I was 15, moved up to being a server, then a cook. I managed a Godfather’s Pizza restaurant while in college. Then I went to work for Gilbert/Robinson restaurants for six and a half years and moved around the country a little, learning the ropes, before I came back to Kansas City to manage Sam Wilson’s Meat Market on 103rd.

Next, I was named general manager of the Bristol on the Plaza. After a while there, I thought I knew enough to start my own restaurant with a partner, Michael Peterson, formerly with Grand Street Café. It was called Michael Forbes Grille, the name coming from both of our first names. It opened in Waldo in 1985.

Michael Forbes Grille moved to Brookside in 2012, and it’s been a joy. I have dozens of regulars coming in for lunch and dinner and other customers doing the things that people love to do at their favorite restaurants. I really take pride in teaching because I believe that you have to be a leader and a teacher and a mentor. The most fun I have is developing relationships with employees and working together as a team.

Customers have chosen my restaurant out of all the restaurant choices they could have made in Kansas City—and there are a lot—and I remain forever grateful. There are 20 times more restaurants in the city than there were 30 or 40 years ago.

I can’t tell you how many family celebrations and wedding celebrations and graduation celebrations and birthday celebrations have happened in my restaurant. But each time I see one of those special events with happy, smiling people, I get a warm feeling in my heart.

I think that this is what a restaurant should be—a homey, friendly place where people can count on good food and good service. Where all the kids and the teens and mom and dad and grandma and grandpa are equally at peace, getting great food and having a great time.

So it was with mixed feelings of sadness and gratitude that I announced my retirement from the restaurant on June 5. I guess I just felt like it was time to move on. Maybe slow down a little. Smell the roses and all that other stuff that retirement is supposed to mean.

Since closing his restaurant, Forbes Cross has worked as a consultant at Chappell’s Restaurant and Sports Museum in downtown North Kansas City. Photography by Laura Morsman.

I plan on being a consultant going forward because, well, this business gets in your blood and there are a lot of tricky little ins and outs to explain. The big one I learned early on: the importance of location, location, location.

I have spent a lot of time in the local Kansas City restaurant scene and had a lot of experiences, both good and bad. I made friends with a lot of great people.

I’ve been lucky. I have opened and managed 14 restaurants in my career. You may know some of them: Martini’s, Parkway 600, Japengos and Union Cafe.

Here’s a story about 10 gone but not forgotten iconic KC restaurants.

People say that the restaurant business and the whole hospitality business in general is really tough. You are working holidays, weekends and special occasions. When everybody else is having the most fun, you have to work. You’re expected to be there. Early. Late. Nonstop. Whatever it takes. Execution is key. Consistency is key.

Your restaurant is a big part of the fun that people want to have on those special days, and you better get it right every time. Miss a beat, pay the price.

In this business, you are invested in the well-being of other people at all times. You are feeding them. You want to make everybody happy. And you work hard to make everybody happy.

But soon enough, you find out that no matter what you do, some people won’t be happy. Maybe they’re just having a bad day. Maybe they don’t want to be with the crowd they’re with. It probably has nothing to do with you or the restaurant. People will be who they are. That’s how the hospitality business rolls. You deal with the personality quirks, stay flexible, adjust and go for the positive.

I would get up every day ready to make someone’s special event even more special or someone’s great meal the best they ever had. I’m ready for them when they show up as a new or repeat customer. My servers are briefed. My cooks have what they need. Specials are double-checked. We’re ready to get on with the show.

Me? Now retired? I’ve become the menu item that’s off the list. “Cross is 86ed, Chef.” I hope my management style left a good taste in everybody’s mouth. I hope people remember their experience at my restaurant. “Hey, remember that great time we had at Michael Forbes?”

Cheers to all, and so long. Time for a new chapter. Michael Forbes.