Estate sale includes original sign from one of Wichita’s most popular onetime restaurants
A restaurant relic has just been unearthed from the basement of the contractor who worked on a once-famous Wichita restaurant, and it’s up for grabs at his estate sale, which started on Monday.
Andy Solter, who in the 1970s owned Sunrise Construction Co., died in November, and his family is selling off his estate at a sale at his home. It continues through Friday at 703 Marcilene Terrace, near Kellogg and Edgemoor.
Included in the sale is an original sign from the restaurant Portobello Road, which opened in August 1973 at 504 S. Bluff, near Kellogg and Oliver. The restaurant, owned by Larry Frasco, Bill Lusk Jr. and Mike Osterhout, was a fine-dining establishment designed to resemble an English pub. It was a Wichita favorite until it closed in 1996, when the building — which was in the way of Kellogg construction — was targeted for demolition.
Before Portobello Road took the space over, it had been the longtime home of Elizabeth’s Restaurant, a more dainty tea-room style eatery that operated from 1955 until 1972. The new owners wanted a totally new look and feel, and they hired Solter to handle the renovations.
Solter’s sister, Kristi Solter, says that somehow, her brother ended up with the massive sign after the original restaurant closed. She’s not totally sure whether it hung on the inside or outside of the restaurant, and she doesn’t know exactly how he came to possess it, but it was a belonging he was proud of.
Over the years, she said, as people grew more and more nostalgic for Portobello Road, her brother realized he might have a relic someone would want.
“He wanted to sell it to someone,” she said. “He tried everyone he could think of to send out feelers to and see if anybody wanted to buy it, and he couldn’t find anybody.”
Eventually, Andy Solter’s health declined, she said. Her brother suffered from dementia and died of kidney failure in November. He was 75.
Carol Stegman, who has owned C&S Estate Sales for two decades, said she immediately recognized the treasure when she started preparing the estate sale. It was in the basement, she said, and she also found a stack of 1990s-era menus from Portobello Road as well as one of its old reservation books.
Stegman said she didn’t move to Wichita until the early 1990s and only had a chance to dine at Portobello Road once. She remembers that her now ex-husband took her there and “spent a ferocious amount of money.”
But she knew that the restaurant was one of Wichita’s most fondly remembered, so she had the two-piece sign — brown with golden letters in an old English font reading “The Portobello Road, fine food, ale & wine” — hauled upstairs and hung in a place of prominence over the home’s front room windows. It’s one of the first things shoppers will see when they step into the sale.
“I love stuff like this,” Stegman said. “And it was something that was totally unexpected. I knew it was something that was going to interest a fair amount of people, and I thought, ‘Somebody out there needs this.’”
C&S has priced the sign at $985. Those wanting a more affordable memory can grab an old Portobello Road menu or wine list for $3.
Andy Solter was a bit of an art collector, too, and his small brick home is also filled with original art by people like Betty Richards, Judy Burns, Robert Siegman and onetime Larkspur owner Pam Bjork. It also has lots of vintage dishware and furniture.
The sale is open until 6 p.m. on Monday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 2:18 PM.
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