Future of Town & Country on West Kellogg uncertain, but a new location will open soon
Town & Country, the family restaurant that has operated at 4702 W. Kellogg for 63 years, may not reopen in its longtime space, says the longtime customer who has just taken over the place.
But a new version of the restaurant — which will be called Town & Country Classic — will open sometime next month in the former Paula’s Bar & Grill at K-42 and Maize Road.
Billy Wood, a retired gas company worker who moved to Wichita in 2012 and ate at Town & Country four or five times a week, is taking over the restaurant that longtime owner Larry Conover ran until he died in March.
He’d been planning to reopen it in March but is having trouble coming to an agreement with the building’s landlords, he said. He’s still hopeful he can, but in the meantime, he’s decided to go ahead and open in the new spot.
If things eventually work out, he said, he’d like to reopen the West Kellogg restaurant as well.
“When Larry got sick, all of the help said, ‘We’ll probably just close up,’” Wood said on Thursday. “I said, ‘Well I don’t want to see that happen. It’s an institution. It has good food, good people, good prices, everything.”
Town & Country Classic won’t have as big a menu that the original did, Wood said, but he’s hiring the same cooks and hopes to hire most of the wait staff as well. Many of the employees met this week at the new location to see what they thought. Most indicated they were on board, he said.
He’s going to take some of the decor from the original restaurant and hopes to give the new location a similar 1950s look and feel, (though probably not as many roosters, Wood said.)
Larry Conover died in March at age 73 after a two-year battle with throat cancer. He’d dedicated his life to running the restaurant that his father founded and where Larry had worked since age 11. Jay Conover, a World War II Veteran with an entrepreneurial spirit, got his start when he took over the restaurant attached to the Town & Country Lodge in 1957. At the time, the city limit was at West Street.
After Larry died in March, his brother, Michael Conover, helped keep the restaurant going. But it closed a few weeks later, on March 19, in response to coronavirus concerns. It’s remained closed since, and regulars have been asking about its status.
I have a call in to the West Kellogg landlord and will update this story if I hear back. Stay tuned for information on the status of both restaurants.
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 12:33 PM.
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