Wichita restaurant closes after less than two years. Owner cites COVID losses, rent hike
It’s been a hard month for Mo’s Hut, the Hawaiian restaurant at 2800 E. Central that Shawn Gordon opened almost two years ago with “aloha” spirit to spare.
First came the announcement last week that, because of COVID-19 losses, he’d let his staff go and cut back his hours.
Then, on Tuesday evening, Gordon shared even worse news: The restaurant has closed.
On his Facebook page, Gordon said that a “financial dispute with our property owners who raised our rent” mixed with the challenges COVID-19 has presented were too much to overcome.
But he hinted he wasn’t done for good.
“Aloha doesn’t mean hello or good bye, it means see you soon,” the post read.
I’ve reached out to Gordon to find out what the future is for his Mo’s Hut food truck, which he just upgraded in January of this year, but I haven’t yet heard back.
Gordon, who trained as a chef in San Francisco and operated a Hawaiian restaurant there called Huli Huli, moved to Wichita to be part of the Church on the Street project. In June 2018, he opened a small food trailer serving the food he missed from his home state.
His menu, which included things like Hawaiian burritos, loco moco teriyaki beef, and Korean short ribs, was popular, so he decided to expand with a brick and mortar location. He opened it in February 2019 in the space that once held NFL vet Kamerion Wimbley’s Wings & Things.
This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 1:06 PM.
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