A local restaurateur on the rise is taking over the cafe space at the Wichita Art Museum
The restaurant space at the Wichita Art Museum is about to get a new tenant after 15 years.
Muse Cafe, a Latour-operated restaurant that first opened in the museum in 2007, put on its last service last weekend, said museum director Anne Kraybill. Crews will soon get to work renovating the space to make way for a new concept by chef-on-the-rise Katharine Elder, owner and founder of Elderslie Farm and the brains behind its various dining concepts.
Elder will call the new restaurant 1400 by Elderslie (the 1400 is a nod to the museum’s address, 1400 W. Museum Blvd.) It will start with a focus on breakfast, lunch, weekend brunch and coffee and bar service then will eventually add dinner, she said. The cafe will also handle the museum’s catering.
If all goes as planned, it should be open sometime in February.
“Honestly, it’s a really great fit,” Elder said. “It’s made the whole process really streamlined and collaborative, and it just makes a lot of sense.”
Elder, who runs a fine-dining restaurant, a seasonal cafe and a creamery on her husband’s family’s farm in Kechi, said the new cafe also will have the “core of Elderslie hospitality with a broader audience.” At the new restaurant, she’ll continue her focus on using seasonal ingredients and working with local growers.
The interior of the cafe will be fitted with black walnut tabletops fashioned by Katharine’s husband, George Elder, at his Elderslie Woodworks business. It’ll also have new lighting and an updated feel.
Kraybill said that the museum’s agreement with Latour Management had just come to an end.
“We just felt like it was time after a wonderful relationship of 15 years to try a new partnership,’ Kraybill said.
The move will leave Latour — the onetime owners of The Olive Tree, Chelsea’s, Two Olives, Piccadilly and more — with just one physical restaurant: Bagatelle Bakery at 6801 E. Harry. The business also still does catering out of a former restaurant space at 1540 S. Webb Road.
Elder said nothing will change at Elderslie Farm because of the new Wichita project and that dinner service will continue as usual in Kechi.
“We’re not abandoning what we already built,” she said, adding that work on the art museum will fit nicely into the farm’s seasonal lull.
This story was originally published November 14, 2022 at 10:10 AM.
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