Slider Shak is a new restaurant planned for Wichita’s Delano neighborhood
There’s a new restaurant cooking in Delano, and if all goes as planned, it will open in the former Coney Island Hot Weiners space in Delano sometime this summer.
Slider Shak, a project by Matt Bauer and a partner, is now under construction in the space at 1001 W. Douglas that Coney Island vacated in January after less than six months in business. Court records showed the restaurant was evicted over unpaid rent.
Bauer said his restaurant will focus on sliders, but he plans to offer more than just the traditional hamburger style slider (though he’ll have those, too.) His mini burgers will be filled with all different fillings, from meatloaf to chicken to meatballs. He’s planning a taco burger slider, too.
He was inspired to go into the restaurant business, Bauer said, by his parents, who both cooked in Wichita restaurant kitchens. Theirs was the house where his friends always congregated, knowing they could get good food.
Bauer inherited the cooking gene, he said, and his slider idea hit him one Fourth of July.
“We kind of wanted to just make mini burgers,” he said. “We thought it would be fun. It ended up going fantastic. Then we started making chicken sliders, and it kind of became a game. Meatloaf sliders. Taco burger sliders. What else can we slider?”
The menu also will include sides like homemade chips, potato salad and green salads with homemade dressing. He’ll also offer a meal deal that features two sliders, a side and a drink.
Much like at Coney Island, diners will approach the counter, place their orders, take a number and wait for their food. Inside, the whimsical wall paintings from Coney Island have been replaced with wood paneling to give the place more of a “shack” feel.
Slider Shak will offer beer and wine, and the owners hope to complete the patio on the building’s east side that Coney Island started but didn’t finish.
Bauer said he’d hoped to have the restaurant open by now but the coronavirus pandemic slowed things down. If all goes well, he said, he hopes to open by mid-summer.
Stay tuned for updates.
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 9:37 AM.
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