Print edition: 
Call it the “Chef Shuffle.”
It’s a restaurant phenomena in which popular chefs make a name for themselves in a community, then spend years hopping from restaurant to restaurant to restaurant, looking for just the right opportunity.
It’s caused, say chefs and restaurateurs, by a list of factors, including chefs’ artistic temperaments and their never-ending quest to cook “their food.”
In Wichita, chefs have been shuffling a lot lately.
Recently, chef Jeremy Wade parted ways with Corporate Caterers owner Ben Arnold. The pair had been partnered for about a year, and much had been made of the impending opening of their A.V.I. restaurant in the newly restored Broadview Hotel.
But a couple of weeks ago, Wade — who through the years has worked at Uptown Bistro and Ya Ya’s Eurobistro — backed out of A.V.I. He decided he would help Chester’s Chophouse owner Wink Hartman open a new restaurant in the former Bella Donna/Garrozzo’s space at 2121 N. Webb Road.
Wade’s departure created an A.V.I. opportunity for Adam Courtney, whose resume includes a couple of his own restaurants, plus stints at Oeno and Go Wild. Courtney was hired last year to revamp the menu at the Candle Club, a private supper club at 6135 W. 13th St. (Word is another well-known local chef will take over the Candle Club when Courtney leaves later this month.)
Wade and Courtney aren’t the only chefs who like to move. Since coming to Wichita and opening his 626 Douglas in 2004, chef Douglas Pitts has staffed or headed the kitchens at Chester’s Chophouse, Bella Donna, D.K. Kitchen, Press and most recently The Anchor.
There’s also Jason-Paul Febres, who had two stints at Sabor, nearly opened his own place, then worked briefly at Mike’s Wine Dive before landing happily at Taste & See Everyday Gourmet.
And local chef Brian Mangers once worked at Cibola, headed the kitchens at Oeno, then Uptown Bistro, and also did a recent stint helping out James Butler at Lotus Leaf Cafe & Creperie.
Melad Stephan, owner of Luca, Sabor and Oeno, has employed nearly all of the transient chef crew at one point or another. Now, he’s trying to bring chefs in from out of town for his restaurants.
He calls the chef shuffle the “domino effect” because when one leaves his or her post, others follow to fill the newly vacated jobs.
Chefs generally get restless easily, Stephan has learned. They work long hours and often don’t feel like their skills are fully appreciated. The average lifespan for a chef at a restaurant is about two years, he said.
“They move so much because they get bored with the job, they think they’re burned out and taken advantage of,” he said.
Though he loved his year at the Candle Club, Courtney said that the attraction of getting to do more of his own thing at A.V.I. — especially while catering events at the Broadview — was too much of a lure.
“A lot of it is the opportunity,” Courtney said. “And a lot of it is that we do get bored. If you’re at a place for so long and it’s not constantly challenging you, you’re done with it and it’s time to look for something else.”
