Wichita’s N&J Cafe, now owned by founder’s sons, celebrating 30 years with a big buffet
Thirty years ago, Antoine Toubia’s pastry guy at Cafe Chantilly — the gone but not forgotten Latour restaurant that operated at 6921 E. Kellogg from 1983 to 1993 — decided to open his own bakery.
John Srour Sr., who had grown up in a Lebanese family of pastry chefs, had been recruited from Michigan to work for Toubia in 1986 and for several years would turn out tempting puff pastry swans and other desserts that wowed customers.
But when the 1990s dawned, Srour was ready to do his own thing. In 1991, Srour Sr. partnered with Antoine’s brother, Naji, and opened N&J Bakery in part of a strip center at Lincoln and Edgemoor. Their specialty was authentic pita bread.
The bakery was a success, so two years later, Srour Sr. and his then-wife, Mona, adding seating and lunch and dinner menus that featured dishes Srour Sr. grew up eating in Zahle, Lebanon: fattoush salad, shawarma, grape leaves and more.
Thirty years later, N&J Cafe is one of Wichita’s most popular and established Lebanese restaurants, and on Saturday, it will celebrate its three decades of feeding Wichita with a big Lebanese all-you-can-eat buffet of shawarma, gyro, cabbage rolls, grape leaves, kebbe, hummus, baba ganouj and more. The $20-a-person buffet will be served from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and plenty of tickets are still available. The event will include desserts by local chef Bill Crites, live music by Sterling Gray, $3 keg beer draws and special Lebanese cocktails.
Though N&J is still serving the same food that has made it a Wichita favorite since 1991, nearly everything else about the eatery has changed over the decades.
It’s no longer owned by founder Srour Sr., who died in 2011 at age 70 after a battle with leukemia. And Srour Sr.’s ex-wife, Mona, who owned the restaurant for 15 years, retired last year, selling N&J Cafe to her grown sons — Nick Srour, 34, and John Srour, 32.
N&J Cafe is also no longer a small business in a big strip center. Over the years, the family has taken over almost the entire center. During that time, they’ve added extra dining space, a banquet area and a pita business run by the Srour brothers for the past 13 years — John’s Pita Bakery, which provides fresh pita to restaurants all over Wichita and in Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Kansas City as well. The N&J “complex” is also home to N&J Global Market, owned since 2016 by Srour daughter, Bettina Tobassi.
Nick Srour said his earliest memories are of being in the restaurant. In its early days, his father was in the kitchen and his mother would talk to customers in the front. The fresh Lebanese fare quickly helped the Srours develop a dedicated fan base, and over the years, they continued to grow. By 2002, they had taken over 8,000 square feet in the strip center.
Around 2005, the Srours divorced, and Srour Sr. decided to retire, leaving Mona to run the restaurant. A few years later, Srour Sr. purchased just the bakery part of the business back from his ex-wife, and for a year, he made pita for her to use in the restaurant. He called his portion of the business John’s Pita Bakery.
But soon, Srour Sr. fell ill with leukemia and left the bakery work to his grown sons. He died in February of 2011 at age 70, leaving a hole not only in his own family but in the larger Lebanese community. Over the years, Srour Sr. had become a sort of surrogate father to many Wichita Lebanese men and would mentor them when they arrived in the United States.
Nick Srour remembers that once his father had the restaurant built up and running smoothly, he’d often hold court in a booth on the far side of the dining room — drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes as person after person filed in to visit with him.
The Srour sons have since their father’s death built the little bakery into a big business, and they now supply pita bread to several Mediterranean restaurants around Wichita, including Bella Luna Cafe, MIF Deli, Cafe Maurice, Larkspur and more. The brothers make so much of their big, chewy pita rounds that they go through about 3,000 pounds of flour a week.
Last year, the Srour brothers decided they were ready to take on more, and they had dreams of running the family restaurant just as their father had. So they approached their mother with their plan to buy the place. She agreed after they promised she could stop in for coffee whenever she wanted.
When they took over last year, the brothers announced big plans to remodel the restaurant on both the inside and out and to add a sit-down bar in the massive dining room. Those plans are still on, but when building supplies became more expensive during COVID-19, the brothers decided to put them on pause. They’re hoping they can launch and complete the remodel in 2022.
Last year, just after they’d taken over, the brothers threw a 29th birthday bash for the restaurant and said they’d donate all the money raised that day to victims of an explosion that had rocked Beirut. The response was overwhelming, they said, and people stood in a line that stretched around the building to pick up food. They raised $12,000 for the cause, but the day was chaotic.
Anticipating similar interest for a 30th birthday party, the brothers came up with the idea for the buffet. They’re selling tickets in advance so that they can space diners out and avoid overwhelming crowds. People can still get the $20 advance tickets at the restaurant, and if some are still available on Saturday, they’ll be for sale at the door, too, Nick said. This year, they’ll donate proceeds to the Ronald McDonald House.
The brothers are excited to celebrate a milestone in the business their father founded, Nick said, and it’s been satisfying to see how happy longtime customers are when they learn that the restaurant will be cared for by the next generation.
Their goal, Nick said, is to run the business like their father did.
“My dad, I like to think, had a real passion for the restaurant. I’ve never seen anybody put that much effort into any one project,” Nick said. “We still run into people as far away as Kansas City who will come up to me and say they knew my dad and they’re happy this is working out. From what I’ve seen in the years since dad passed, he affected a lot of people.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 11:45 AM.
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