Abandoned Wichita restaurant space will be demolished to make way for 2 new restaurants
It’s been sitting vacant since 2015, when the Church’s Chicken chain suddenly closed all its restaurants and left town.
And during that time, the boarded up, dilapidated building at 3808 E. Harry has become more and more of an eyesore.
Soon, though, that building will meet its merciful end, and a new building with room for two restaurants will take its place.
Dallas-based Vibe Restaurants has purchased the building and soon will demolish it. On the site, the group will put up a new, 2,800 square-foot building that will have room for two restaurants.
One of the spaces will be taken by a new Wingstop, which should open by spring or summer of 2022. The group will be looking for another restaurant tenant for the other half of the building, which will have a drive-through window.
Vibe Restaurants is the same group that owns Wichita’s two other Wingstops — at 7325 W. Taft and 2548 S. Seneca. It’s also the group that is remodeling a once-vacant auto shop at 21st and Amidon, where soon it will open both a Wingstop and a Clean Laundry laundromat. That project is nearly complete, and there’s still 2,000 square feet available in the space.
The group, which also owns 79 Little Caesars restaurants across nine states, likes to find old buildings and remodel them or replace them with buildings that will better serve their communities, said Faisal Lalani, the group’s co-founder.
“We just want to make sure we are kind of updating the neighborhood and bringing something new,” he said. “We are really about taking something that’s been an eyesore and spending the money to commit to the neighborhood and bring a fresh image there.”
Lalani said he envisions more Wingstops for the Wichita area. His group is looking for a space in the 29th and Rock Road area, he said, and it’s also also planning restaurants for Derby, Salina and Hutchinson.
Levi Iseman of InSite Real Estate Group represented both the buyer and the seller in the deal.
The new building will go up right next door to a new Church’s restaurant that entrepreneur Mike Jizzini opened in January. Jizzini, who announced his plans to revive the Church’s chain in Wichita in 2017, also has a restaurant at 13th and Oliver and will open a third soon at Pawnee and Broadway.
This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 11:15 AM.
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