Friends identify shooting victim as popular Irish chef and restaurant owner Shaun Brady

Ilana Arougheti

Thu, August 29, 2024 at 3:19 AM GMT+1·2 min read

Friends have identified Kansas City chef Shaun Brady as the victim of a fatal shooting outside the Irish restaurant he owned in the Brookside neighborhood Wednesday evening following an armed confrontation.

Kansas City police officers responded to reports of a shooting at East 63rd Street and Rockhill Road around 5:18 p.m. Wednesday, according to Sgt. Phil DiMartino, a Kansas City Police Department spokesperson.

Upon arrival officers discovered the victim unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds, DiMartino said.

The victim was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, DiMartino said.

Brady owned and operated Brady & Fox Restaurant & Lounge with chef and friend Graham Farris.

The beloved chef was both a father and a prominent figure in Kansas City’s Irish community. He is survived by his wife, Kate, a Wichita native who met Brady while traveling in Ireland.

“He was a great chef, but he was a better friend, husband, and father,” one friend wrote on Facebook Wednesday night. “We lost a good man tonight. I lost a friend. His family lost much more.”

The victim had been taking out the trash from one of the adjacent businesses when he encountered several people standing around a parked car, DiMartino said. The shooting occurred as the interaction between the man and the group of suspects escalated.

The shooting was witnessed by several people, DiMartino said, and was captured on surveillance cameras from nearby businesses. Officers continued to investigate at the scene of the shooting Wednesday night.

Brady & Fox opened in spring 2022 in east Brookside following more than a decade of culinary collaboration between Brady and Farris. The pair previously ran Brady’s Public House, an Irish restaurant on Troost Avenue that closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The chef grew up in County Tipperary, Ireland, and was one of the youngest graduates from the Dublin Institute of Technology after falling in love with the Dublin restaurant scene.

Brady worked in kitchens in Europe and Asia before embarking on a culinary career in Chicago. When he relocated to Kansas City to become executive chef at the Ambassador Hotel, Farris became first his apprentice, then his partner.

Heavily involved in Kansas City’s Irish community, Brady was also a vocal participant in Kansas City’s Irish Fest, bringing live cooking demonstrations to the festival stage.

Brady’s death was the 102nd homicide reported in Kansas City this year, according to data tracked by The Star. At this time last year, 133 homicides had been reported in the city.

Reporting by The Star’s Joyce Smith contributed to this article.