This building housed one of Wichita’s longest-running restaurants. Soon, it will be gone

A building that once housed a beloved Wichita restaurant is coming down.

An excavator is parked in front of the building at 4702 W. Kellogg that for more than six decades was home to Town & Country restaurant, and the equipment driver told an Eagle reporter on Monday that demo work would start on Tuesday. The building’s owner pulled a wrecking permit with the city of Wichita on Nov. 19 that will allow for a “complete demo” of the building, according to records.

The restaurant space has been vacant since the summer of 2021 when a group of owners unrelated to the Conover family — whose patriarch Jay Conover founded Town & Country in 1957 — vacated after a brief attempt to revive the restaurant.

Though the building’s owners then relisted it for lease, a new tenant never materialized, and over the past year, it’s become covered with graffiti. People driving West on Kellogg could clearly see the building — a sad remnant of what it once was — from the highway.

Troy Farha, who previously had the listing on the building and whose uncle was one of the property’s owners, said that the pad where the building sits may be put on the market eventually, but the owners haven’t yet decided what they want to do. Farha is also an owner as the trustee of his uncle’s estate.

For decades, diners flocked to Town & Country, which World War II veteran Jay Conover started running in 1957. At the time, the restaurant was connected to a motor lodge and sat on the western edge of the Wichita city limits.

Jay died of esophageal cancer in 1980, and his son, Larry, took over the restaurant. Larry was well known to customers as the face of Town & Country until he died of throat cancer in 2020, just as the pandemic hit. The restaurant closed during COVID and never reopened — though unrelated owners took it over in October of 2020 and reopened it as Town & Country. That iteration closed after less than a year.

Over the years, Town & Country was known as a family-friendly place to get down-home cooking and reliably good chicken-fried steak and prime rib. It also was known for retaining staff — and customers — for decades.

This story was originally published November 27, 2023 at 2:16 PM.

Denise Neil

The Wichita Eagle

316-268-6327

Denise Neil has covered restaurants and entertainment since 1997. Her Dining with Denise Facebook page is the go-to place for diners to get information about local restaurants. She’s a regular judge at local food competitions and speaks to groups all over Wichita about dining.