A few new Wichita restaurants will likely go ahead with plans to open despite pandemic
It’s a beyond tough time to be in the restaurant business.
But what if you’re the owner of a restaurant trying to open during a pandemic that’s causing other eating establishments to temporarily shut their doors, one after the other?
Before the world went topsy-turvy earlier this month, several Wichita restaurants had impending opening dates circled on their calendars.
At least one managed to get it done despite everything. Wichita’s newest Schlotzky’s opened just a week ago Greenwich Place, K-96 and Greenwich.
Another couple of restaurant owners are cautiously planning to open despite the challenges they know they’ll face, including having to start off strictly as to-go businesses.
And few others are feeling a little less bold and have decided to hold everything until life goes back to normal.
Pandemic openings
Franchisees J.J. and Hortencia Ramsey recently decided to go ahead and open their new Schlotzky’s, Wichita’s fifth. They got it done exactly a week before Sedgwick County issued a stay-at-home order, effectively closing all restaurants for anything but to-go activity.
And they may soon be joined by a couple of other new restaurants, even if dining rooms are ordered to stay closed.
Longtime Wichita-area restaurateur Eric King is still chugging toward an April 6 grand opening for the new CrazE4 Chicken restaurant he’s planning for Wellington.
King, who was already in regrouping mode after opening the short-lived Barbe-Q-Pit — then filing suit against the restaurant’s owners when it closed less than a month later — said he thinks his new place can make it. The restaurant, a fast-food chicken business, is taking over the KFC building that recently became vacant when the restaurant abruptly closed in December.
At the moment, Wellington is especially short on restaurants, and there’s no other fast-food chicken place in town, he said. His opening, even with drive-through service only, would be good for Wellington, a town with a population of about 7,800, he said.
Still, it’s a scary time to be applying for a small business loan, King said, and he’s not yet sure exactly how it’s all going to work.
“We are still shooting for April 6 as an opening date,” he said. “But are we facing challenges and difficulties? Absolutely.”
Another restaurateur who hopes to open despite it all is Doug Wessley, the franchisee behind the long-awaited Pizza Ranch at 2121 N. Tyler.
The restaurant is under construction now, and things are moving quickly, Wessley said on Monday. He was hoping for a mid-May opening and he very well may go ahead with that, regardless of what’s happening with the pandemic.
Right now, he said, he’s focusing on getting the restaurant “functionally completed.” After that, he’ll reassess, but his tentative plan is to go ahead and open with just carryout and delivery if he has to. Despite being a buffet restaurant, Pizza Ranch could easily offer things like chicken dinners with mashed potatoes and gravy to-go, he said.
“It would be weird to open like that, but then again, people are excited and still want food at home,” he said, adding that Pizza Ranch restaurants in other cities are having “quite a bit of success” offering food to-go so far.
Wait and see
Other restaurateurs aren’t feeling quite so bold, though.
Before the Sedgwick County commissioners made their stay-at-home recommendation on Monday, Pete Whitlock was going to go ahead and open his new Pete’s Donut Shack, a mini-doughnut food truck. His plan was to launch the business in the parking lot of Westway Plaza at Pawnee and Seneca on April 4.
By Tuesday morning, he’d changed his mind, deciding to postpone his grand opening “until this is over.”
And the owner of one of Wichita’s most anticipated new restaurants, the Belmont in College Hill’s Happiness Plaza, also has decided to wait and see.
If nothing had changed, Tory DeMarce would be preparing for a late March grand opening for his new neighborhood restaurant and bar.
The restaurant will definitely still open, he said, but it won’t make March. He stopped the hiring process, which he’d begun just before things started to change for Wichita, and he’s now using the extra time to work on training materials and menu development.
The owners want to open the restaurant as soon as there’s an all-clear.
“We’re waiting until this ban is lifted and as soon as it is our doors are going to open for business,” said Ryan Francisco, co-owners.
The owners are also looking for ways to collaborate with other businesses to help feed parts of the community in need, from kids to the elderly to members of the medical community.
Opening day will just have to wait “until it’s responsible,” DeMarce said.
“We hope to have all construction items wrapped up this week so that when we do get through this pandemic, we will be ready to hire our full staff and open the doors to the community.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 4:31 PM.
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