Wichita restaurant owner starting contest aimed at getting people back downtown to dine
COVID-19 has hurt business at restaurants all over Wichita.
But downtown restaurants are feeling a particular pain because the usually full office buildings surrounding them are largely empty as people work from home, says Natasha Gandhi-Rue, who owns The Kitchen at 725 E. Douglas.
So she decided to organize a fun promotion that she hopes will get people back downtown and eating, and it starts next week.
She’s recruited 12 food and drink businesses from the downtown area to collaborate with her on a project called “Eat Local, Drink Local.”
People who visit all of the participating businesses during the month of November and collect stamps proving they bought something at each one will be entered to win a big prize — $50 gift certificates to each of the 12 places, a value of $600. Organizers will randomly draw two winners from all the cards turned back in by Nov. 30, she said.
Gandhi-Rue said she was inspired by a similar promotion that some local boutiques put on earlier this year and copied the model. She reached out to restaurants, bars and coffee shops in the core downtown area to see if they’d want to join in. She got only one “no.”
Each restaurant will set its own minimum required purchase, but at her restaurant, Gandhi-Rue said, people can buy something as inexpensive as a cookie and get a stamp. Her goal is to get new people through the doors.
“You might not even know I’m here, and you might come for the first time,” she said.
People can pick up the stamp cards at any of the participating restaurants, she said, and they can turn them in there, too.
The restaurants taking part in the promotion are The Kitchen, Doo-Dah Diner, Reverie Coffee Roasters, Monica’s Bundt Cake, District Taqueria, Jenny Dawn Cellars, Hopping Gnome Brewing Company, Public at the Brickyard, Piatto Neapolitan Pizzeria, The Anchor, The Donut Whole and The Monarch.
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 12:17 PM.
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