Wichita’s newest Carlos O’Kelly’s will serve as a test lab for the chain, owner says
The great Carlos O’Kelly’s/Applebee’s switcheroo of 2021 continues this week with the opening of a deluxe new Carlos O’ Kelly’s restaurant at Plazzio, the development at 13th and Greenwich that also includes the Warren East theatre.
And the new restaurant, which quietly opened over the weekend but is now ready to feed the public, is a deluxe version of the longtime Wichita-based Mexican food chain, said owner Jon Rolph, and it will have a few features and menu items other Carlos O’ Kelly’s don’t have.
Rolph said he envisions the new Carlos O’ Kelly’s as a place where he can test ideas to roll out to the entire Carlos chain, which includes 16 restaurants in five states.
“We’re really seeing this new store as kind of our lab for the system,” he said. “We’ll try things there first and get the response there from our customers.”
The new restaurant, whose address is 11317 E 13th St., lived the first part of its life as an Applebee’s. But when Rolph’s Thrive Restaurant Group purchased a bunch of Applebee’s restaurants last year — the company now owns 80 — the owners decided a little restaurant musical chairs was in order.
Rolph, who also bought and reopened the Applebee’s at the corner of Kellogg and Andover Road in Andover, decided he didn’t want two Applebee’s restaurants that close together. He also had long wanted to get a Carlos O’Kelly’s restaurant open on the rapidly growing Greenwich corridor but had never found just the right spot.
He decided to move the Carlos O’Kelly’s that had operated at 3025 N. Rock Road since 1998 to the Applebee’s building and to move the Applebee’s to the old Carlos O’Kelly’s space.
The Carlos O’Kelly’s on North Rock Road closed on April 13 to make its move to the remodeled space at 13th and Greenwich that now includes a modern bar and an airier dining room. Construction will soon start inside the North Rock Road building, which will be turned into an Applebee’s restaurant that Rolph hopes to have open by the middle of August.
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The new Carlos O’Kelly’s at 13th and Greenwich features a horse-shoe shaped bar where people can sit and try out drinks the chain is testing, like micheladas and Lazy Mules, which are Moscow Mules made with Don Julio tequila. The Carlos O’Kelly’s on North Rock Road, Rolph said, had just a service bar.
The relocated restaurant has higher ceilings than a typical Carlos O’Kelly’s and a more open feel. There’s also a patio with fireplace where people can dine outdoors.
“There’s not another one out there that looks like this,” he said. “It doesn’t feel at all like the Applebee’s it was before.”
The menu at the new Carlos is also a little different, Rolph said. For example, it offers a lineup of street tacos that the other Carlos O’Kelly’s restaurants don’t have.
Rolph said it was important for him to get the new Carlos O’Kelly’s open before Cinco de Mayo, which is next week. He also wanted to be ready when the Warren East reopens after its long COVID-19 shutdown, which will happen on May 7.
“We’re hoping for a really big opening,” he said.
The hours at the new Carlos O’ Kelly’s are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
This story was originally published April 26, 2021 at 12:26 PM.
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