Wichita restaurants let the outside in, embrace airy dining trend popular in big cities
When Tory DeMarce and his partners were drawing up their plans for The Belmont — the popular new College Hill restaurant that opened last summer at 3555 E. Douglas — they had a specific feature in mind.
They wanted an “indoor/outdoor” restaurant, where they could throw open massive doors to the outside whenever the weather was nice enough and let indoor diners feel like they were on a patio, too. It was a concept they’d seen go over well in places like Texas, Colorado and Arizona.
But some questioned their sanity, he remembers.
“Originally a lot of people locally said, ‘You’re not going to be opening those more than 12 days a year,’” he said. “But we’ve been able to open them quite a bit, honestly.”
DeMarce, whose restaurant is now known for its big garage doors lining three sides of the dining room, is among the local restaurateurs embracing the indoor/outdoor restaurant trend popular in bigger cities but sometimes seen as impractical in Kansas, where temperatures fluctuate to the extreme throughout the year.
Several Wichita restaurants over the years have installed retractable garage doors that give indoor diners access to evening breezes and street scenes. Restaurant/bars like the Monarch at 579 W. Douglas and Pumphouse at 825 E. Second have had them for years. But recently, even fine-dining restaurants have begun to embrace the concept.
Ty Issa recently installed a wall of garage doors at his YaYa’s Eurobistro, 8115 E. 21st St. North, and they’ve changed the whole feel of the restaurant, he said. When he first opened them, “I felt like I was in Europe.”
The retractable doors, which take up the east-facing wall of his dining room, allow evening patrons to enjoy the bands on his lush patio and let Sunday brunch patrons enjoy cooler morning breezes.
Issa says he thinks the concept will continue to take off in Wichita, especially after COVID-19. Since the pandemic started, many diners have craved outdoor dining and well-ventilated dining rooms, and open-air restaurants can help people feel more comfortable, he said.
“It’s not going to stop,” he said. “It’s going to be a part of our lives. All new restaurants now are going to design the patio before they design the dining room.”
Doors lift, moods lift
George Youssef’s Georges French Bistro at 4618 E. Central is known for its all-season doors, which Youssef installed when he remodeled his restaurant in 2017. He wanted Georges to feel like a real Parisian cafe, and in Paris, indoor/outdoor restaurants are common.
The doors have been such a hit with his customers that Youssef recently launched a big remodel of the patio at his Chester’s Chophouse, 1550 N. Webb Road. It should be done next month and will include the addition of retractable doors that open up the back of the restaurant to the lake outside.
Anytime he opens the doors at Georges, Youssef said, the restaurant feels bigger and the diners seem happier.
“It puts people in a better mood,” he said.
Of course, in Kansas, the indoor/outdoor feel comes with a cost. DeMarce admits that the restaurant’s electricity bills are huge when he opens the doors during the summer, letting all the air conditioning flow out onto Douglas. And the restaurant has to be especially vigilant about preventing flies that may come inside from getting into the kitchen.
But DeMarce said he’s been pleasantly surprised by how often he can open the doors. He doesn’t open them when it’s super hot, super cold or humid outside — which describes much of the year in Kansas. But he was able to keep the doors up through much of April, May and June. Throughout July, there have been several cooler evenings where he was able to open them again, he said, and he expects to find more of those in August. When September and October arrive, the doors will frequently be open again.
The doors have been so popular that customers request indoor tables closest to them, he said. They also frequently ask him to open the doors, even on days when the weather isn’t cooperating.
“They give you a lot of flexibility,” he said. “Once they’re open, they really change the feel inside of any restaurant. It’s almost like you’re in a different place.”
This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 8:40 AM.
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