Longtime Wichita bar and a Mexican restaurant are losing their buildings in car wash deal
It looks as though three food-related businesses at 21st and Amidon will have to find new homes this spring, including a longtime neighborhood bar.
Sheila Hoskinson, whose mother, Penny Lahar, opened Penny’s Caravan 20 years ago at 2260 N. Coolidge — just east of 21st and Amidon — said that she’s been told by her landlord that she’ll have to vacate by the end of May.
The Penny’s building, she said, will be demolished along with its three neighboring buildings in Coolidge Village — including the one housing Tacos Raymundo, 1716 W. 21st St. North, the old Meritrust Credit Union building at 1730 W. 21st St. North, and a fourth building behind it where Tricia Holmes, owner of Holmes Made Salsa, has had her production kitchen for the past 16 years.
Once cleared, the site will be home to a new Club Carwash. A representative of the Columbia, Missouri, based chain told The Wichita Eagle in January that it would be opening several new car washes in the area, including one at 1716 W. 21st St. — which is the address for Tacos Raymundo.
This week, Club Carwash’s director of marketing Emeri Burgher said the car wash should be ready to open on that site in October of this year.
Hoskinson said that her family may have found another space for Penny’s not far from the current location, but it’s not yet a done deal.
An employee at Tacos Raymundo, speaking on behalf of the owner, said that he hadn’t yet been informed by the landlord that he’d have to move, although he had heard the rumor. She said he doesn’t know what his next move might be. Tacos Raymundo has operated on the site for 17 years.
Holmes, meanwhile, said she’s in the process of trying to find a new production space. She has a spot in mind but nothing is final. Over the years, she’s had the chance to purchase the building she’s in but said she didn’t want to own a building that existed on someone else’s property.
Property owner Joan Kincaid hasn’t yet returned calls about the deal.
Neighborhood bar
Hoskinson says that she and her family are hoping to relocate Penny’s to a vacant space at the Sweetbriar shopping center at the northwest corner of 21st and Amidon, where Aldi and Davis Liquor are. The space they’ve identified for the bar is on the northwest corner of the shopping center.
To make it work, though, they’ll have to get zoning adjustments approved because the space is close to a school and a church. They won’t know for a few more months if it will work out.
If it doesn’t she said, the family will probably have to close Penny’s.
The bar, which pre-pandemic was known for its raucous karaoke nights and for the nude painting hanging above the bar, is one of many that Lahar has owned over the years. Hoskinson, who runs the place with her sister, Sharon, said that her mother long ago owned a club called Penny’s at 900 S. Broadway and has also had Brookside Club as well as Play Bunny Club in the 1980s. Lahar also owned the Roadhouse on North Broadway for eight years.
Hoskinson said her family is sorry to lose the building. During the pandemic shutdown last year, they remodeled the bar and revived its food service. Two years ago, they installed an $8,000 fence around the patio last year — a patio covered by grape vines they’ve been growing for 20 years. The outdoor space is a popular hangout for neighborhood people who ride their bikes over or bring their dogs to join them, Hoskinson said.
She said Penny’s lease expired on Dec. 31, and when they tried to renew, they were offered only a month-to-month lease. They had the chance to buy all four of the buildings in the complex, she said, but they only wanted their building. She thought the other three buildings were just going to be leased out, so the news of demolition plans came to a surprise.
“I had no idea she was going to sell it,” Hoskinson said.
Club Carwash is adding several locations in the Wichita area. It already is operating at 21st and 127th East and at 2401 N. Rock Road in Derby. Over the next several months, it plans to open car washes at 47th and Broadway, at 141 S. Rock Road and at 2055 N. Woodlawn
This story was originally published March 3, 2021 at 2:25 PM.
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