Wichita estate sale find unlocks history of a once-loved 1940s ‘restaurant palace’
Over the past year, I developed a new obsession: visiting estate sales.
It’s not the stuff I’m after so much. Mostly, I just like to see the insides of the houses, and I love trying to piece together in my mind the stories of the onetime residents’ lives.
And sure, sometimes I pick up some stuff, too.
Late last week, I had just dropped off a friend from lunch when I saw signs pointing me to an estate sale in the Indian Hills neighborhood. An hour later, I found myself immersed in the history of a once-favorite Wichita restaurant from the late 1940s and early 1950s: a “restaurant palace” on East Harry called White Cliffs of Dover, where diners could get a half dozen oysters with lemon for $1.15.
I had quickly gotten the feeling while visiting that estate sale that I might be in the home of a restaurant owner. While perusing the kitchen, I saw an old, green restaurant rating card — with the grade of A — hanging on the wall near the refrigerator. A faded sticker was adhered to it, and the only word I could make out was “breakfast.” (Until 2003, health inspectors would give Wichita restaurants “grades” of either an A, B or C, and they’d display their report cards on their walls. A grade of “A,” of course, was the goal.)
I kept looking around the sale, and in a back bedroom, I came across something that surprised me: copies of two articles I’d written for The Wichita Eagle back in 2004 about “gone but not forgotten” restaurants. The articles had been clipped from the paper, mounted on foam board and sealed in plastic, and at the top of one page, someone had written: “Thought you would find these two articles interesting, especially the last part of the second one.”
In the bottom right hand corner of the display was also a copy of an old postcard featuring a sketch of White Cliffs of Dover, “where courtesy and service excel.” And in fact, the last paragraph of my 2004 article mentions the restaurant — named for some scenic and famous rock formations on the English coastline — as a spot readers fondly remembered.
Of course, I paid the $5 the estate sale operators wanted for this treasure and took it home, eager to learn more.
I quickly learned that the estate sale I’d visited had been in the onetime home of Richard and Joy-Lyn Cottam. Richard, who died in 2011, had been a journalism teacher at Wichita State University and also had worked at KAKE-TV. His wife, Joy-Lyn, is the daughter of J. Floyd and Edna Updike — who appear to have been high-profile business people in 1940s Wichita. Her parents even named a second Wichita restaurant they owned in the late 1960s after her.
My research revealed that White Cliffs of Dover opened around 1948 at 720 E. Harry. Its original owner was a man named Buddy Taylor, who placed ads in The Wichita Beacon saying that “North, South, East or West, all Wichita likes The White Cliffs of Dover best.” He bragged up his eatery’s abundance of parking spaces.
A few years later, though, it looks like Jack Updike partnered with a woman named Esther Townsell and took White Cliffs of Dover over. Updike also was in real estate, and he and his wife, Edna, were both brokers at Updike & Scott Inc. Realtors, which operated at 3110 E. Douglas. Townsell was a chef who continued cooking in local restaurants until she died in 1965. After White Cliffs of Dover closed in 1953, she opened another restaurant called The Elms at 1029 S. West St.
When Updike and Townsell had White Cliffs of Dover, its menu was rather high end. Customers could get a 12-ounce T-bone steak for $1.50 and also could choose from seafood dishes, including a half-dozen oysters with lemon for $1.15 or a half-dozen french-fried deep sea scallops for $1.10. There was also broiled chicken livers on toast with cream sauce, broiled calf’s liver with bacon or onions, pan-fried chicken and “all kinds of delicious sandwiches, soups and salads.”
White Cliffs of Dover served breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it also had a soda fountain that offered ice cream and malts.
In December of 1952, White Cliffs of Dover placed an ad in The Wichita Eagle announcing that it “had been ordered to sell by public auction the following described restaurant fixtures and equipment, piece by piece.” The restaurant building itself would be razed, the ad said, and it listed cigar cases, cash registers, waffle irons, bun warmers, refrigerators and more.
The Updikes went on to own another restaurant, this one called Joy’s Cafe, presumably named after their daughter. It was at 120 E. Harry and operated from about 1966 through 1970. Jack died in 1998 at age 91. He outlived his wife, Edna, who during her life also had been a theater organist. She died in 1995 at age 88.
The spot where the White Cliffs of Dover once stood is now a parking lot for Hupp True Value Hardware at 728 E. Harry. But I enjoyed traveling back in time and learning about the once grand “restaurant palace,” which during its time offered “a variety of quality foods seasoned right.”
This story was originally published June 28, 2021 at 12:54 PM.
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