Wichita restaurant owner on why he doesn’t plan to reopen his dining rooms any time soon
By now, the majority of Wichita restaurants have reopened their dining rooms after being forced to close them from late March to early May amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But there are still a few restaurant owners who aren’t quite ready to allow diners back inside.
One of them is Alex Harb, the owner of Wichita’s three — and about to be four — Meddys restaurants in Wichita.
He was among the first in town to voluntarily close his restaurants when the pandemic started, and the virus still has him worried, he said.
He’s gone back and forth, read and researched, talked to other business owners, polled his staff. And he keeps coming back to the same conclusion, he said.
If he wants to keep his staff and customers safe, it’s just too soon.
“I believe a lot of us already have the virus, and a lot of us are already giving it to each other,” he said. “I’m trying to avoid having a cluster in my restaurant. I might be losing a little bit of money right now, and it might be excessive for me to try to keep the train on the rails. But I’d rather keep it on the rails than have it get derailed and have to put it back on the rails.”
Now, Harb is about to launch a new business plan that he feels comfortable with.
Two of his restaurants — the ones at 2300 N. Greenwich and at 7906 E. Harry — have been open for curbside to-go orders for the past several weeks. He did open the Greenwich store for dine-in for about 15 days in early June but closed it again. His downtown restaurant at 120 S. Washington has remained dark.
But starting on Monday, June 29, he’ll begin offering curbside to go orders from all three restaurants. He’ll also allow people to dine on his outdoor patios as long as they order their food from the Meddys app. As an incentive, he said, he’ll offer people who use the app a free appetizer.
As for his new Meddys, which is nearing completion near Kellogg and Ridge, Harb says he still plans to open it this summer but will start with the curbside to-go and outdoor dining setup there, too. It should be in business by the end of July, he said.
Harb doesn’t know when he’ll be ready for dine-in customers again, but his goal is to be “proactive and flexible,” he said.
“I have asked myself if I’m missing out, but at the end of the day, what I tell my team is that we have to do the right thing, and the right thing is to do the best we can when it comes to safety.”
This story was originally published June 22, 2020 at 12:57 PM.
.jpg)