Two vacant west Wichita restaurant spaces are both getting new Mexican food tenants
Two vacant restaurant spaces on West 13th Street in Wichita are about to get new tenants — both Mexican restaurants.
One is the old Los Compadres Mexican Grill space at 3827 W. 13th St. North, which has been inactive since January 2019, when the Los Compadres owners said they were closing it temporarily. There’s now a sign on the building saying that Los Cabos Cantina & Grill will be taking over the space.
The owners are not, however, the same people behind the Los Cabos at 7011 W. Central that closed last November after only four months in business. Instead, the restaurant will be owned by Chris Martinez, who manages La Hacienda at 5905 W. Kellogg and also owns El Mariachi Mexican Restaurant at 1320 E. Central and co-owns El Azteka in Haysville.
He liked the location at 13th and West, he said, and a friend encouraged him to check the space out. He’ll serve authentic Mexican food at both lunch and dinner, he said, and his remodel of the space includes expanding the bar to seat 14 people. He also has some interesting new drinks in mind and plans to eventually offer karaoke nights and live music on the weekends.
He hopes to have the restaurant open by Nov. 1.
Los Compadres owners Carlos Renteria and Jaime Martinez, who closed their west-side restaurant to work on some upgrades just as they opened their east-side restaurant at K-96 and Webb, long insisted that they would reopen it, even though the reopening kept being pushed back and back.
Renteria now says that they decided to give up the spot on West 13th as the COVID-19 pandemic began. They wanted to put their full focus on the east-side restaurant, he said, and they finally decided that the 13th Street space wasn’t suiting their needs.
Los Compadres, which first opened in June 2015 at 3302 W. Central, will eventually have a west-side presence again though, he said.
“It’s how we started, and we definitely want to be back out again where we initially started,” Renteria said.
There also appears to be a new tenant taking over the spot at 3090 W. 13th St. where Sorrel’s Jamaican Food operated until last fall, when it moved downtown.
A new sign in front of the space says Marina’s Mexican Seafood. The building, recognizable for its front patio that the Sorrel’s owners decorated to look like an island palapa, has been tidied up, and there appears to be remodeling work being done in the small indoor space.
I’m working to find out more information about Marina’s Mexican Seafood, so stay tuned.
This story was originally published September 21, 2020 at 10:31 AM.
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