An update on The Anchor: No set timeline for reopening, but owner is ‘working on it’
The Anchor — a longtime Wichita favorite restaurant and bar at 1109 E. Douglas — closed for renovations in mid February and still hasn’t reopened.
More than four months later, many longtime fans are wondering when it will.
On Tuesday, owner Schane Gross said that she doesn’t have a timeline for the completion of the renovation project, which includes an enlarged kitchen, new restrooms and the removal of part of the middle wall separating the east and west sides of the business.
But she’s “working on it,” she said, adding that she needed a break after recently losing several people close to her in a short time span.
Back in October, when Gross first announced plans to open a new restaurant called Rail Hoppers at 3642 Oliver, she also said she was planning to shut down The Anchor to finally launch a remodeling project she’d been talking about for years. At the time, she said, she thought the project would take eight to 10 weeks.
The Anchor closed in mid-February, and Rail Hoppers opened in early March. But so far there’s been no public updates on progress at The Anchor, which originally opened in 2004.
The front windows at The Anchor are covered now, but passersby can see inside the door on the restaurant’s east half. The Anchor’s bar has been relocated to the east wall, and the wall that separated the two sides of the space has been lowered to make the restaurant feel like one big room. The enlarged kitchen has a new 26-foot hood, and Gross also has added a new draught beer system that will allow the remodeled anchor to have 96 tap handles.
Otherwise, the restaurant still looks like a construction zone, with unfinished surfaces and construction equipment parked inside.
The Anchor has been one of downtown Wichita’s favorite hangouts for nearly two decades and has always been known for its big beer selection and menu favorites like The Haystack — a decadent pile of fries topped with queso. Rail HOppers, which Gross described as a grown-up version of The Anchor, serves many of its most popular items.
Stay tuned for more updates on The Anchor’s renovation and reopening as they become available.
This story was originally published June 21, 2023 at 5:02 AM.
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