The humble Midwestern meatloaf becomes unlikely star of upscale Wichita restaurant’s menu
Before moving to Wichita to be near his wife’s family, First Mile Kitchen owner Nick Korbee spent his career owning restaurants in New York City.
And even though he grew up in Ohio, before he landed in Kansas, meatloaf was not part of his culinary vocabulary.
During his three years as a restaurant owner in Wichita, though, something has changed, he said.
“Never in a million years did I think I would be saying the words I’m about to tell you,” he said recently. “I love meatloaf.”
Now, the humble meatloaf is about to become a thing at First Mile Kitchen, an otherwise upscale restaurant at Bradley Fair whose standard menu includes things like bone marrow, oysters, caviar and braised short ribs.
Korbee said he first started to come around to meatloaf when Bud Gates, a Wichita businessman and onetime Pizza Hut executive , became a mentor to him. Gates, Korbee said, loves meatloaf “more than any human being I’ve ever met in my entire life,” and the two ended up talking about meatloaf for hours.
Nine months ago, Korbee said, he added meatloaf to the menu. His version is kind of a “personal pan meatloaf,” he said, made with beef, pork and veal and a smoky barbecue glaze.
“It’s now our No. 2 selling item, and it’s really, really good,” Korbee said.
As part of Kansas Food Bank’s Restaurant Week in September, First Mile offered a deal in which it donated $5 for every meatloaf sold.
“We really didn’t do as much good as I thought we would in terms of what I thought we could provide to the Food Bank as a donation,” he said. “We were going into the holidays, and I thought, ‘I can do better.’”
So Korbee came up with a whole campaign based on meatloaf. Here’s how it will work:
Starting on Dec. 1 and going through Christmas Day, every time First Meal sells a meatloaf in the restaurant, it will donate a meatloaf to HealthCore Clinic, a local charity near 21st and Grove that offers medical and dental services and also has a food pantry where people with food insecurity can take what they need. The pantry offers not only canned goods but also fresh produce and prepared foods.
“They are a big recipient of Kansas Food Bank food products,” Korbee said. “It’s a place that we can more directly make an impact.”
The personal-pan meatloaves will be prepared at Cargill’s downtown innovation center, where there’s more space for his staff to work, Korbee said. His goal is to donate 1,000 meatloaves.
To enhance the promotion, Korbee said, he’s come up with a menu of five specialty meatloaves that people can order in the restaurant. It includes the original plus a Mexican meatloaf with beef and chorizo; a turkey meatloaf with apples and sage; a veggie meatloaf made with lentils; and a brunch meatloaf that features maple pepper bacon and breakfast sausage.
Those who order the meatloaf meals in the restaurant will also get mashed potatoes, green beans and crispy onions. They also can order just the meatloaf either for dine-in or for take-out or catering. The price is $14-$16 for just the meatloaves or $20 to $26 for the full dinner.
The individual meatloaves Korbee donates to the food pantry will be 12 ounces and will use the original recipe on the First Mile menu, the turkey recipe and the Mexican meatloaf recipe.
“If this has legs, we’re looking at doing it year round,” Korbee said. “...We’re hopeful to expand the partners in this thing, too. For now we have HealthCore, and we’re trying to figure out other avenues for giving.”
Korbee said that no one’s more surprised than he is that he’s developed such a passion for meatloaf. But he’s not apologizing.
“I want to really participate and try to do something good with my time that’s a little more meaningful than trying to hustle steaks and cocktails and be too cool for school,” he said. “The older I get, the more I learn how absolutely uncool you get as you get older and older.”
First Mile meatloaf menu
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