Owner closes his Wichita sports bar, agrees to sell property to the business next door
A Wichita sports bar that opened three years ago has closed, and the space it occupied will end its run as a food establishment.
Jeran Trotter, who opened Sidelines Sports Bar & Grill at 1400 E. First in February of 2022, said he closed the business on the weekend of Feb. 8. He’s decided to sell the property to a neighboring business — American Collision & Hail Repair. The deal is set to close next week, he said.
Trotter described the decision as bittersweet.
“Honestly, they came with an offer I couldn’t decline,” he said. “It was never up for sale.”
American Collision’s address is 212 N. Cleveland, and its building backs up to the Sidelines space. Once it takes it over the Sidelines space, the center will more than double its space from 8,000 square feet to 16,500. Once the space is renovated, the collision center will switch to the First Street address, said co-owner Brian Patton.
Patton said the shop is hoping to put on a grand opening event on May 1.
Trotter, meanwhile, is planning a sale that will empty the restaurant of its contents. That should happen soon.
“That location will never be a bar again,” he said.
The building at 1400 E. First St. appears to have operated as a car lot in the late 1990s then was up for lease in the early 2000s. It also once housed a Mexican restaurant, Trotter said, and around 2011, it was briefly home to a club called Copa Cabana.
From 2015 to 2020, the space was occupied by Club Boomerang, an LGBT nightclub whose owners painted the building a bright orange and frequently put on drag shows.
Trotter, a onetime record-setting running back for the Northwest High School Grizzlies, remodeled the space after Club Boomerang closed, creating a sports bar that was filled with local sports memorabilia.
He says he’ll now focus on his real estate portfolio and on his youth sports organizations — Wichita Grizzlies and Next Level Athletes.
This story was originally published February 18, 2025 at 2:32 PM.
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