Owner of just-closed east Wichita burger restaurant: ‘I bit off more than I could chew’
Two years after it opened, the east location of Dempsey’s Burger Pub, 550 N. Rock Road, has closed, its owner saying he overextended himself.
The restaurant’s last day in business was Sunday.
Steven Gaudreau, the Lawrence-based owner of the restaurant, said that he’s now hoping to sell the space to someone else who wants to open a “turn-key” restaurant in a high-traffic area.
Gaudreau also owns Dempsey’s Biscuit Co. and the original Wichita Dempsey’s Burger Pub in Clifton Square, both of which will remain open, he said.
The east-side restaurant, which opened in the former Ernie Biggs space in January of 2018, had strong sales, Gaudreau said. But he underestimated how much attention he would need to give it and could never find someone to run it who could make it match the Clifton Square restaurant in quality.
“It was all a miscalculation on my own part, my own lack of following through,” he said. “What it came down to was I spread myself too thin and wasn’t able to manage it properly. I wasn’t able to stay on top of it, and I wasn’t able to deliver the same product I was able to deliver at Clifton Square.”
He also was never able to follow through on his plan to turn half of the 5,200-square-foot space into a banquet facility. In retrospect, he said, the most square footage that would have worked for a Dempsey’s Burger Pub restaurant would have been “2,500 to 3,000, tops.”
His lease was about to end, Gaudreau said, but he knew he wasn’t going to renew it and he wanted his staff to know before the holidays.
“I am still in control of the lease right now, so we are trying to sell the assets of the company,” he said. “I know someone is going to do really well there. It just wasn’t me.”
I’ll let you know if someone else takes over the space.
This story was originally published November 4, 2019 at 1:39 PM.
.jpg)