Flashback Friday: 1970s Wichita loved Judge Riggs, known for singing waiters, London broil
Welcome to Flashback Friday, a feature that runs Fridays on Kansas.com and Dining with Denise. It’s designed to take diners back in time to revisit restaurants that they once loved but that now live only in their memories — and in The Eagle’s archives.
This week’s featured restaurant, Judge Riggs, was one of the hottest tickets in town in 1970s Wichita.
In 1975 Wichita, people in search of weekend entertainment went to clubs.
Back then, private clubs were the only place Wichitans could order a drink, thanks to the Private Club Act of 1965 that allowed liquor-by-the-drink to be sold only to people who had paid memberships to such establishments. And that’s the way it stayed until 1986.
Starting in 1975, the hottest club in town was probably Judge Riggs, which operated inside the just-built $6 million Hilton Inn East hotel at Kellogg and Rock Road. (Today, that hotel is a Holiday Inn, which is about to fill the restaurant space inside with a new place called 54 Craft & Co.)
Judge Riggs was special because, in addition to ’70s-riffic dishes like barbecue crab and London broil, customers could be serenaded by singing waiters and waitresses — a first in Wichita (and way before Macaroni Grill even existed.) The singers, often local college students, would take orders then break into song, often delivering renditions of favorites like “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” “The Sound of Music” and “If Ever I Would Leave You.”
The club was named after Wichita’s first probate judge, Reuben Riggs, and it would often play into its theme. Its signature drink at the end of the 1970s was called “Take the Fifth,” and though the recipe was secret, it was basically a Mai Tai.
It was nearly impossible to get a reservation at Judge Riggs for years, and it wasn’t cheap to eat there, either. The restaurant offered high-end dishes like Cornish game hen, escargot, twin lobster tails, and baked Alaska.
Judge Riggs had a dress code — no jeans, tank tops or T-shirts were allowed. The newspaper described the place as “very cosmopolitan.”
Until 1979, when the club got a face lift, it hired live musical acts to entertain the crowds. After the remodel, it switched to live disc jockeys, who vowed to play more than just disco. The singing waiters, owners assured the public, would remain.
The post-facelift decor was described by the Wichita Beacon in 1979 as Victorian, with “subdued lighting, draped booths and comfortable dining chairs “ that “present a leisurely tableau.” The photo accompanying the article about the remodel shows three patrons, cigarettes in hand, laughing around a small table dotted with cocktails.
But Judge Riggs appears to have closed by 1984 and was followed by clubs with names like Carnegie’s and Celebration.
The hotel was sold in 1985, and since then, it’s had several different names and owners. Before it became the Holiday Inn, it was Wichita East Hotel, Harvey Hotel and Four Points Sheraton of Wichita.
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