It’s been a tough time for bars, but Wichita’s getting two new ones
The pandemic has been hard on bars in Wichita — and across the country.
Suddenly, places where people gather to drink, listen to music and dance are considered dangerous, and several local bars have faced two rounds of shutdowns.
Still, new ones are popping up, including two in Wichita.
One, a rockabilly bar with pinup girl-style, opened earlier this month in Wichita’s Delano neighborhood. The second, a re-imagination of a longtime dive bar, opens this weekend with a big outdoor beer garden.
Here’s a look at two of Wichita’s newest bars.
The Rockin Billy Goat, 925 W. Douglas
Wichita’s Delano neighborhood has a new rockabilly bar that serves both food and craft beer and caters to fans of live music.
The Rockin Billy Goat opened on Aug. 7 at 925 W. Douglas, right next door to longtime Wichita hangout Club Billiards. In fact, the bar takes up half the space that Club Billiards occupied before the owner decided to downsize last year.
Plans for the new bar were first announced in October, but at the time, owners said it would be dedicated to airing extreme sports on its television sets. Since then, they changed their minds and decided to go with the rockabilly theme.
Kayla Warren, one of the bar’s owners and its general manager, said the bar is embracing the pin-up girl style associated with the 1950s rockabilly era, and a photo on the bar’s Facebook page shows that Warren has mastered the style herself.
The bar, which is also owned by Asher Joseph, was able to open despite Sedgwick County’s temporary bar shutdown because it offers a small food menu, Warren said. Patrons can choose from chips with salsa, queso and guacamole, a street taco plate, taquitos or quesadillas.
Rockin Billy Goat has craft beers on tap as well as a big selection of bottles and cans. The bar also offers special theme-appropriate cocktails, like a Jessica Rabbit martini.
Fans of live music will find it at the new bar on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and Warren describes the music as coming from “a mix of genres.”
“We’ll have classic, rock, blues, jazz, country,” she said. “The only things we stay away from are hip hop and heavy metal.”
The new bar has a pool table and also a small patio on the back of the building. Its hours are 3 p.m. to midnight Wednesdays through Saturdays.
So far, Warren said, the bar has been busy.
“It’s a lot of people from Delano,” she said. “And the crowd is mostly anywhere from their mid-20s to late 30s.”
The Cowboy Inn Saloon, 642 N. St. Paul
She closed her other Wichita bar — The New Stadium — after the COVID-19 pandemic started.
But now, Jeannie Ahrens is about to revive another popular Wichita dive bar.
This weekend Ahrens is opening The Cowboy Inn Saloon, which she’s tagged “the best little dive bar in Wichita,” in the site of the former The Cowboy Inn, which has operated since 1989 at 642 N. St. Paul. That’s near the intersection of Central and Zoo Boulevard.
Her grand opening celebration is set for Saturday. It begins at 1 p.m. with with live music starting at 3 p.m. and food on the patio starting at 4 p.m. The bar will also feature dancing, pool and ping pong, and Ahrens is planning to grill food each weekend.
There’s a big outdoor beer garden behind the bar, and Ahrens said she did a complete remodel inside.
She purchased the bar and started the remodel in February, Ahrens said. But because of the pandemic, she’s only just now able to get it open.
The bar’s hours will be 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Mondays through Fridays and 1 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Ahrens reopened The Stadium Bar at 620 W. Maple in Delano in April 2017. She’d been a longtime bartender there, and when she took over, she called the place The New Stadium. It became a venue for live music and had bands several nights a week.
Ahrens closed the bar on March 17, just as the pandemic took hold in Wichita. Eventually, Ahrens decided she had to close it for good.
“It just couldn’t hold on,” she said.
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