After getting way behind on rent, owner closes doors of unusual Wichita ‘bar’ and grill
Seven months after opening, a Wichita bar and grill with a unusual concept has closed its doors.
The Light Dry Bar and Grill, which opened in May at 1051 N. Broadway as a place that would give people in recovery a place to hang out and socialize, quietly closed a week ago.
Laura Broyles, who opened the business, said that she now realizes she was underfunded when she opened. She got behind on the rent and that there wasn’t enough business to keep it going.
Broyles said it’s possible, though, that she could reopen the business if she can find some investors or donors.
“I’m just kind of regrouping and trying to figure out what to do,” Broyles said. “The landlord said if she does find somebody else to rent it to, we’ll still have first chance of saying, ‘Okay, we want it now.’”
Broyles is also the head of the nonprofit New Life Reentry Program, which aims to help women who have been in prison and are trying to restart their lives.
The Light operated in an old Burger King building that had been vacant for years but which Broyles and her crew remodeled.
“It just needed more time to catch on,” she said. “It was great. I loved it.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2018 at 9:15 AM.
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