One of Wichita’s last remaining hangouts for smokers makes a big change
The Candle Club — a private club at 6135 E. 13th St. with a 1960s throwback look and feel — is notorious for being one of the last places in Kansas where people can legally smoke cigars and cigarettes indoors.
But earlier this month, the club’s owners made a big change in the 60-year-old institution’s longstanding smoking policy.
As of June 1, smoking is no longer permitted in the club’s lounge — the main area that includes the bar, the stage where live bands perform, the dance floor and the best of the club’s mid-century decor.
In fact, smoking isn’t allowed anywhere in the club except for in one place — the closed-off “Candlelight” room on the building’s north side. It has its own bar and access to an outdoor patio, but cigar and cigarette smoke can’t escape it, said Judah Craig, who took the club over six years ago.
The change was not made without careful consideration, Craig said. But he was hearing from members who dropped their memberships that smoking was one of the main reasons.
He decided to poll members about their feelings on a possible change.
“Obviously, for some people, smoking has been part of their tradition in the club for a long time,” he said. “But we pretty resoundingly heard from our membership that they’d be thrilled to have the lounge non-smoking.”
Membership to the club, which features the lounge, a large dining room and several private event rooms, costs $40 a month.
The Candle Club was first opened on East Kellogg by brothers Ted and Tom Werts in 1960. It operated there for three years before it moved in 1963 to the new Prairie Village Shopping Center at 13th and Woodlawn, which today also includes Paramount Marketplace.
Its heyday was before liquor-by-the-drink laws passed in 1985, which allowed Wichitans to order alcohol at places other than private clubs. But the club is still popular today, both with older Wichitans who remember attending with their parents as kids, and with younger ones who enjoy its live music and retro lounge feel.
When Kansas’ indoor smoking ban was instituted in 2010, private clubs across the state that were licensed before 2009, including the Candle Club, were exempted.
A few longtime smoking members of the club were disappointed by the change, Craig said, but they appreciated being accommodated with the alternative smoking room.
During local coronavirus shutdowns, when the Candle Club was closed for all but carryout meals, Craig was able to make some other changes, he said.
He redesigned the bar in the lounge, adding stools and making it a horseshoe shape that opens up the room. He also added a window between the lounge and the main dining room so that diners can see what’s happening in the lounge without being disturbed by the volume of the live bands.
Before the June 1 change, the club banned smoking only in the main dining room.
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 12:56 PM.
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