A tiny Wichita diner known for breakfast and long waits has just finished an expansion
For years, if you wanted to get a table at the home-cooking restaurant Livingston’s Cafe in Lincoln Heights Village, Douglas and Oliver, you’d have to cross your fingers and hope you showed up at just the right time.
The restaurant, which originally opened in 1992 and until five years ago was called Jeanne’s Cafe, has always been a teeny-tiny place with just a six booths, a few tables and a small counter. But that didn’t stop people from showing up for its weekend breakfast and rotating list of weekday blue plate specials.
Diners who have been there recently, though, have noticed a welcome change. A week ago, owner Melissa Atkinson debuted an expansion that has nearly doubled the size of the restaurant and added 25 seats.
The expansion has also allowed Atkinson, the great-granddaughter of Livingston’s founder Andy Livingston, to add restrooms. Previously, customers had to travel through the kitchen to use the facilities.
The project has been in the works for two years, Atkinson said, and was made possible when the barbershop to the west of the restaurant, Village Barber Shop, moved a few doors over into a bigger space. Suddenly, there was room available.
She’s been slowly working on the project, starting with the addition and the new restrooms. She also painted and re-carpeted the whole restaurant, closing for only two days earlier this month.
Customers have already expressed their delight at the extra room, Atkinson said. The long waits, she speculates, may have discouraged some previous customers from even trying for a seat. Now, she hopes they’ll come back.
“So many people have been so happy and encouraging,” she said. “We have such a good, loyal customer base.”
The Livingston’s Cafe dynasty is the oldest still operating in Wichita. It started in 1910 when Andy Livingston opened the first Livingston’s Cafe at 310 N. Emporia.
Bob Livingston, Andy’s grandson, opened the Lincoln Heights Village cafe in 1992 and named it for his wife, Jeanne Shaft. Bob died in 2012, leaving Jeanne to run both Jeanne’s Cafe and the east-side Livingston’s Diner, which now operates at 9747 E. 21st St.
In 2015, Atkinson — who’d long worked as a manager at Jeanne’s Cafe — took it over and changed the name to Livingston’s Cafe.
The restaurant is different from Livingston’s Diner, something that confuses some customers, she said. The two restaurants have the same approach but different menus.
Livingston’s Cafe features a traditional breakfast menu, heavy on the omelets, and has a lunch menu featuring burgers, sandwiches, soups, salads and homemade pies. It has a set lunch special for every day of the week: Mondays are meatloaf; Tuesdays are ham and beans; Wednesdays are chicken noodles; Thursdays are goulash; Fridays are either turkey and dressing or fish.
The hours at Livingston’s Cafe are 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Livingston’s Cafe menu
.jpg "IMG_8399 (1).jpg")
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 5:01 AM.
.jpg)