Gun shop owner has a plan to survive the arrival of Scheels: He’s adding a restaurant
Brad Rogers, owner of The Bullet Stop gun store and range, knows that he’s a tiny David to the Goliath that is Scheels — a massive sporting goods store opening at Towne East Square on Saturday.
So Rogers, who bought The Bullet Stop at 2625 W. Pawnee last year, came up with a plan to set himself apart from the big guy: He’d open an adjoining restaurant and offer food so good that his customers wouldn’t be able to forget him.
“Having the best food will draw people there,” he said. “There’s just so much competition from Scheels that I knew we had to do something to stay relevant.”
That restaurant — which he’s calling Brad’s Chicken, Bullets & BBQ — has already had an auspicious, if not somewhat chaotic, start in Wichita. And it isn’t even officially open yet. Rogers, who put on a brief and totally overwhelming soft opening in late May, is about to reopen the restaurant, which occupies a space on the east end of his building that he previously used for training. He said he should be ready to officially open in the next week or two.
Rogers said his restaurant will serve 11-ounce chicken sandwiches plus chicken tenders and wings that can be served with any level of heat in the breading. He’ll also serve several different house-made sauces, ranging from Ranch to an extra-spicy sauce.
On its way to the restaurant from Missouri is an 8,000-pound custom hickory smoker, Rogers said. On that, he plans to also make brisket and ribs that he’ll serve in the restaurant using family recipes that are more than 100 years old.
“We make them for our family dinners all the time, so we’re going to step it up and do it for the city,” he said.
Rogers also plans to sell doughnuts.
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Although Rogers had been thinking about starting a restaurant for years, he initially decided to open a Wichita franchise of Chuck’s Hot Chicken, which is based in O’Fallon, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. He even paid to have fliers mailed to every household in Wichita announcing the arrival of Chuck’s Hot Chicken.
But Rogers and the franchise parted ways shortly after the fliers went out. He decided to still open the restaurant but quickly changed its name and its recipes. In late May, he decided to try a soft opening, just to see if his machines worked. But some local food bloggers tried the food and raved about it online, and soon, Rogers was inundated with more customers than he could handle.
“We were not prepared,” he said. “We didn’t realize how quickly the word about good food travels through Wichita.”
Rogers then closed the restaurant to prepare for his grand re-opening, but some people who have heard the buzz and have gone by the restaurant to try it have been confused, wondering if it was closed for good.
The restaurant is small, Rogers said, and has only four or five seats inside. He encourages people to call in orders for pickup. The front of the building has two windows: one marked for orders and one marked for pick up.
Once open, the restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Every Monday, he said, he will close for a “big scrub down.” Stay tuned for an opening date.
This story was originally published June 28, 2023 at 10:13 AM.
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