Wichitan’s love of historic Marion inn prompts her to add restaurant, themed parties
The owners of the 133-year-old Elgin Hotel have opened a restaurant and bar to serve overnight guests at the 12-room historic hotel, in addition to area residents and other visitors to the town of Marion, about 60 miles north of Wichita.
“What pushed me to open the restaurant was having to tell my guests, who sometimes have driven an hour or two hours or more to get here, that they would have to drive another 25 minutes if they wanted to have a drink and a steak,” said Tammy Ensey, who lived in Wichita while attending high school, Friends University and then working at Koch Industries.
Since buying and reopening the three-story hotel in 2016, Ensey has had to send guests to places like Grand Central Hotel and Grill in Cottonwood Falls or Ad Astra Food & Drink in Strong City if they wanted to eat something other than what is on the menu at Marion’s Mexican restaurant, pizza joint and diner.
“I enjoy the food at all of those places, but many times when people are coming to stay at the Elgin, they are celebrating something special like a birthday or an anniversary,” she said. “They are wanting an upscale dining experience.”
Ensey researched the hotel’s history to find that when it opened in 1886 with three stories offering 42 sleeping rooms, a fine dining establishment filled the south side of the first floor. She discovered menus but she never found the name of the original eatery, only references to the space being a double parlor. So she named the new restaurant Parlour 1886.
Construction began in June to turn 1,200 square feet on the north side of the first floor into a commercial kitchen and a 65-seat dining room. She hired a chef in July, and in late September they had a soft opening for the town’s annual homecoming celebration Old Settlers Day.
Parlour 1886 opened with regular hours starting Oct. 25. It is open 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday for dinner and offers brunch service 9 a.m. to noon Saturday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. Reservations are taken at historicelginhotel.com/PARLOUR1886 or by phone at 620-381-0675.
In addition to tables and booths in the main dining room, there is a full bar with seating, a private dining room that holds up to 10 people, and another 24 can sit on the covered porch.
Ensey said she has no restaurant experience so she focused on bringing in a chef who would have a hand in shaping the kitchen layout, the menu and run the restaurant like it were their own. She found chef Michael Trimboli through an online job posting and within a 30-minute phone conversation knew his passion matched her passion for creating a dining experience at the Elgin.
“By looking at our website and reading the history of the hotel, Mike got what we were trying to do before he even talked to me or came here,” Ensey said.
Trimboli spent more than 30 years working at restaurants in Las Vegas and most recently was a chef in Florida. He’s not a fan of the cold weather but said he’s loving being in a small town setting, from the friendliness of the customers to the chance to build a new restaurant.
He and Ensey worked together on the menu, a tricky undertaking because they need to serve food that appeals to the tastes and wallets of farmers in Marion County as well as travelers from larger cities. They landed on elevated comfort food.
It’s a scratch kitchen, including everything from the fried goat cheese croutons to salad dressings and sauces to desserts. Trimboli said his Italian heritage drives him to use fresh ingredients, local when possible, that show he cares and to create dishes that make people feel good.
Appetizers range from chargrilled oysters to hummus, which is served as a sampler with a traditional hummus plus weekly flavors like avocado or sweet potato. Chargrilled oysters are topped with either white wine garlic herb butter and parmesan or bacon, smoked cheddar and grilled jalapeno butter. Ensey said chargrilled oysters are hard to find in the area, and they’ve been popular so far. The kitchen can also prepare them raw on the half shell from their supply of fresh seafood delivered once a week.
Entrees, priced from $13.86 to $28.86 including sides, range from Creekstone Black Angus steaks and prime rib to scallops, pasta, burgers, mac-and-cheese stuffed meatloaf and a pistachio pesto cream chicken that Ensey said was inspired by one of her favorite Wichita dishes: Chicken pistachio at Larkspur Bistro & Bar.
Desserts include a carrot cake made from Ensey’s family recipe and rotating varieties of creme brulee and cheesecakes.
Ensey said Parlour is off to a good start and continuing to work on getting a full team on board and trained. The food is getting positive feedback from customers and they already have regulars. They’ll need the support of local diners, especially through the winter months when the hotel typically has fewer guests.
Catie Zurcher is leading Parlour’s front of the house and Kodi Kelsey is the bar lead. Kelsey makes her own sangrias and mixes, and she is developing a fun cocktail menu to go along with local craft beer and Kansas wine featured on the menu.
Overnight guests Thursday through Sunday who select a breakfast rate, which adds about $10 to the nightly rate, receive a voucher to order from Parlour 1886’s brunch menu, which is full of salads, sandwiches as well as traditional breakfast items and twists on classic foods, like strawberry cheesecake French toast.
Guests staying Sunday through Thursday receive a gift card for breakfast across the street at Dorothy’s Coffee House & Tea Room, which is owned by Ensey’s mother. Dorothy’s and Parlour both serve Free Space Coffee roasted in Galva, about 30 miles west, and teas from The Spice Merchant in Wichita.
Special events held in the hotel also will drive business to the restaurant. The team is planning a roaring twenties themed New Year’s Eve party this year. She said to check the website for updates on that and other events she holds through the year, including wine tastings and murder mystery events in the hotel’s 1,200-square-foot Victorian ballroom.
Ensey runs the day-to-day operations at the Elgin and owns it with her husband Jeremy, CEO of St. Luke Hospital and Living Center in Marion. They moved to Marion in 2013 for Jeremy’s job. They purchased the hotel in 2016 after Tammy stumbled upon the vacant building while on Marion’s Main Street looking for office space to run her business creating websites for small businesses.
“Once the Realtor showed us the inside, my husband and I were in love with it and knew this place needed to be shared,” Ensey said.
The Elgin had operated as a hotel until the 1960s then fell into disrepair. It was saved from demolition at least once (an Emporia church wanted to use the locally quarried limestone, Ensey said) and was converted to apartments in the 1980s. That’s when it was put on the National Register of Historic Places. Three decades later, though, it was again in bad shape. It was purchased at auction in 2006 by Jim and Nancy Cloutier, who invested $1.9 million to renovate the building. They lived on the third floor and ran a bed and breakfast with eight suites on the second floor.
The Enseys converted the third floor to four premium suites and have since focused on redecorated, furnishing and marketing the business. They host weddings, meetings and other special events. They get single travelers, couples and groups of friends who like the multi-room suites on the second floor.
The 12 rooms, which range from $109 to $259 per night, are named for famous Kansas people and places. Each has its own bathroom and TV, some have whirlpool tubs. Guests also have access to five living rooms, the original verandah on the second floor, a fitness center, a game lounge, an outdoor courtyard, a conference room and a small library.
Ensey said 75% of her overnight guests are from Kansas City and Wichita. Some choose Marion because they want to stay in the historic inn and others are looking for a quiet getaway, a place near the Flint Hills, hunting or the 300-acre Marion County Park and Lake built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934.
The Father Kapaun Museum, which is next to the St. John Nepomucene Catholic Church in Pilsen, is about 10 miles north of the hotel. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Strong City is about 30 miles east, along with other Flint Hills attractions.
She topped 3,100 overnight guests last year, and brought in several hundred more for events and tours.
“The nice thing is now we have the whole package,” Ensey said. “If someone is looking for a true getaway, they can come here to stay and they don’t ever have to leave the building.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2019 at 5:01 AM.