Landlord needs space to expand his car business, so this 4-year-old restaurant has closed
The owners of San Salvador Cafe — the little pupusa restaurant that opened in 2019 at 5518 W. Central — are on the move, but they don’t know quite yet where their restaurant will land.
Norma Arteaga, who owns the Salvadoran restaurant with her sister, Hazel, said that its last day in business was Saturday. The sisters lost their lease on the building and have been trying — with no success so far — to find another space that fits their budget.
They’d rather buy than lease this time, Norma said, and they thought they’d found a place in south Wichita. But then the real estate agent, who was also the landlord, stopped returning their calls. Now, they’re “starting from zero,” she said.
The sisters would love to find a spot on the west side, which is where they live and where many of their customers live, but they’ll have to get something that they can afford.
“We are sad,” Norma said. “Customers are asking us to stay on the west side, but the rent is really expensive.”
Hamendra Bhakta co-owns with partner Jason Bradley the San Salvador building and the lot it sits on, which includes the former Walt’s All American Bar & Grill space in the strip center behind San Salvador.
In the summer of 2022, Bhakta and Bradley renovated and later reopened Walt’s, but it didn’t last long and was closed by April. Now, the partners are planning to use the strip center that held Walt’s as office space for their Global Auto Brokers car lot, which operates on the southwest corner of the Walt’s parking lot. They’ll use Walt’s parking lot and the San Salvador site to display cars for sale.
Bhakta said that the partners told San Salvador’s owners in February that they planned to tear the building down. The lease expired in May, Bhakta said, but he continued renting it on a month-to-month basis while the restaurant’s owners looked for a new place. Bhakta said he even asked his own broker to help the restaurant find a spot, he said.
At the moment, Bhakta said, he can only fit about 30 cars onto the Global Auto Brokers lot. Once the San Salvador building is gone, he can expand across the whole parking lot and fit about 80-100 cars. One of the main reasons the owners decided to close Walt’s, he said, was so that they could grow the car business.
“In hindsight we should have done that in the first place,” he said, adding that the car lot is more cost effective and feasible than running the bar and grill.
Norma Arteaga said that the sisters will continue their hunt for a new spot and promised an update when they find something.
This story was originally published October 31, 2023 at 5:06 AM.
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