Another treasure trove of Portobello Road restaurant artifacts unearthed in Wichita
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Two of the things I love most in the world — Wichita restaurant history and retro dishware — recently came together, and I was able to make a pretty exciting purchase.
You might recall the story I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the original sign from Wichita’s once-popular Portobello Road restaurant, which had turned up at a local estate sale. The sign had been acquired by Andy Solter, who’d been the original contractor when Portobello Road was being built in the early 1970s. When the restaurant at 504 S. Bluff, near Kellogg and Oliver, closed in 1996 to make way for Kellogg expansion, Solter was able to snag the sign.
He died in December, and the sign was part of his estate sale, which happened in March. Greg Kite, the president of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Wichita and Sedgwick County, paid $490 for the sign and is storing it in a warehouse alongside many other Wichita relics that his organization has collected over the years.
During the course of my reporting on that story, I spoke with Wichita resident Sandy Rupert, who was one of Portobello Road’s first employees and worked there as a bartender and sous chef. Rupert had the backside of the famous sign, which her old friend Solter gave her a few years before he died. (More on that later.)
Rupert, during our interview, told me that she had recently spotted a collection of Portobello Road dishes on Facebook Marketplace. She already had some, she said, so she didn’t need them, but she thought I might be interested.
I immediately searched for and found the listing, and sure enough, Wichitan Danny Herman was offering a collection of 430 dishes that had once been used at Portobello Road, including a stack of plates printed with the restaurant’s name and logo.
I messaged Danny to see if he’d be willing to part with one of the logo plates from the collection, and that launched us into a long conversation. He told me that his father, Alan, who died in 2018, had been an attorney and an enthusiastic antique collector. When Alan died, Danny inherited the collection.
Among the items were the Portobello Road dishes, which included not only the logo plates but also coffee cups, saucers, small bowls and various serving dishes. Herman said his father used to tell him that Portobello Road was once one of the best restaurants in town. He believes his dad picked up the dishes about 25 years ago: A tag still attached to one of the plates indicates that they were acquired at a Bud Palmer Auction.
The plates were made by Syracuse China and are stamped on the back with the code 8-H, which according to a listing of codes used by the company means they were likely produced in 1979. That’s six years after the restaurant first opened.
I recently met up with Herman, who agreed to sell me the logo plates. He loves Wichita history, too, and mostly wanted to hear what I knew about Portobello Road. I now have a stack of the plates, and I’m thinking about throwing some type of Portobello Road themed dinner party in the near future. In the meantime, I’ve put one of the plates on display next to the Forum Cafeteria plate I snagged a couple of years ago at an antique store in Kansas City.
I love owning this piece of Wichita history, and the plates are far more practical for home use than a giant metal sign.
The sign is now whole
Speaking of the Portobello Road sign, when I acquired the plates, I reached out to Kite with the Historic Preservation Alliance not only to boast about my good fortune but also to offer him a few plates for his collection. He was excited as I was.
Coincidentally, he told me, he’d recently heard from Sandy Rupert — the owner of the backside of the Portobello Road sign — who asked him if he wanted it, too. Sandy and her husband, Bill, planned to drop it off the next morning, and Kites invited me to witness the transfer.
The Ruperts were already waiting in their van when I arrived at Kite’s office in downtown Wichita, and sure enough, they had the identical back half of the metal Portobello Road sign in the back. Their side, though, included the signature of the artist who’d painted the sign — Greg Martin.
Sandy Rupert said that she and Andy Solter had agreed that if anyone ever wanted to buy the sign, they’d sell the pieces together. But a sale never happened.
When she heard about Kite buying Andy’s side of the sign at the estate sale, she was impressed by his enthusiasm. She and Bill got in touch with Kite and offered him their half.
“They belong together,” she said.
Kite, who on behalf of the Historic Preservation Alliance has collected all sorts of Wichita artifacts over the years, including the original Orpheum Theatre marquee, stonework and decorative tiles from the Allis Hotel, the signs from the old Willie C’s restaurant, and many pieces of Joyland Amusement Park — said he’ll add the sign to the collection, which he hopes to someday find a way to display.
This story was originally published March 29, 2022 at 11:40 AM.
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