Wichita restaurateur reopens his flagship cafe, prepares to shut down satellite location
One of Wichita’s original coffee shops is celebrating the reopening of its flagship cafe after a five-month-long remodel.
At the same time, it’s announcing plans to close its 5-year-old satellite cafe.
Il Primo Espresso Cafe at 6422 E. Central has been undergoing a major remodeling project for the past five months, resulting in the dining room being closed twice: once in late May then again over the past month and a half.
But the bulk of the work is now complete, said owner Daniel Mariotti. The coffee shop quietly reopened its dining room a week and a half ago, and on Thursday, it will celebrate with a grand reopening. Customers who visit will now find that the shop has a double drive-through that speeds up service, an all-new look in the dining room, and a new covered outdoor patio.
On Monday, though, employees at the Epic Center learned that the Il Primo Espresso Cafe that’s been operating on the ground floor of the downtown building since 2019 is about to close. Its last day will be in a couple of weeks, Mariotti said.
The cafe’s time at the Epic Center — the tall office building at 301 N. Main — was great, Mariotti said, but in addition to reopening his flagship cafe, he has two other big projects he’s working on. He doesn’t want to share details on either just yet, he said, but he has to free up time to focus on them.
“The building is fantastic,” he said of the Epic Center — which happens to be the tallest building in Kansas. “The management is really, really wonderful. There was nothing negative. It just came down to we only have so much time in a day.”
The Epic Center, which businessman Phil Ruffin bought in 2015, will get a new tenant for its first-floor cafe space, said property manager Holli Morris. She doesn’t have one lined up yet but is working on it.
Double drive through
Meanwhile, Mariotti said that he and his staff are excited about the grand reopening of the remodeled coffee shop, which has operated in Normandie Center at Central and Woodlawn since 1993. When it opened, it was one of only a few coffee houses in town.
Back then, the concept of “Seattle-style coffee” was so foreign to Wichita that an Eagle reporter had to explain to the city exactly what it was. “That’s espresso, served up in a variety of ways, often with steamed milk or cream and a wide choice of flavored syrup,” read an article published a week after Il Primo opened.
The Il Primo renovation, Mariotti said, was part of a major makeover that Normandie Center’s newest owners Brent and Kerrie DuPont launched when they bought the almost 60-year-old shopping center in 2022. Much of the rest of the center has already been upgraded.
In addition to the interior redesign, Il Primo is already benefiting from its new double drive-through, Mariotti said: Customers pay and get drinks at the first window then pull up to the second window to pick up food.
“It’s already improved our service times and will continue to improve the customer experience,” he said.
Also speeding things up: Il Primo just got two new full-sized espresso machines, which double the shop’s capacity, Mariotti said.
Though he hadn’t publicized it yet, word had started spreading among Il Primo’s longtime customers that the dining area had reopened. (The drive through never closed.)
Already, Mariotti said, he’s been flooded with business.
“It’s been wild the last week,” he said. “It’s really cool seeing how much the community loves that place.”
Il Primo at Central and Woodlawn is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays; and from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sundays.
Mariotti said he should be ready soon to share details about the other two projects that are keeping him busy, so stay tuned.
Il Primo Espresso Cafe menu
This story was originally published October 29, 2024 at 2:42 PM.
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