New tenant for Todd Brian’s space is a restaurant, lounge with a specific customer in mind
The new tenant for the Old Town Square spot that Todd Brian’s Brick Street Café & Tavern vacated in October is a restaurant and lounge aimed at young professionals.
Kasi Ross II and his business partner, Iasiah Zhang, are working on a new concept for the space at 315 N. Mead that they’ll call Haven. They hope to have it open by summer.
Haven will have a full bar and will also serve Southern-inspired dishes, including brunch on the weekends. Among the items the owners plan for the menu are things like shrimp and grits and chicken and waffles at brunch and blackened catfish at dinner.
The bar will offer a big selection of Ross’s favorite spirit — cognac.
Ross, who is 26, said that he decided to put his accounting career on pause to open Haven because he noticed that Wichita didn’t really have the kind of after-hours lounge he was looking for.
An East High School alumnus and University of Kansas graduate, Ross moved back to Wichita from Atlanta — where he’d been working as an accountant for Ernst & Young — at the start of 2023.
“I quickly realized that there was not really a space for young professionals to go and unwind as well as network and connect in a social setting,” he said. “I wanted to create a space that was geared toward that.”
He and Zhang are planning a remodel of the Todd Brian’s space that will make it feel more cozy and welcoming, the type of place people would want to stay for a while. It will look much different than Todd Brian’s did, Ross said.
The partners plan to offer a happy hour and to host tasting events.
“We really want it to be a place for entrepreneurship, networking and foodies — a place where they can all come together,” Ross said. “I want it to be a place that has more of an elevated dining experience — not necessarily a steakhouse, per se, but a step up from our chain restaurants.”
Ross said he previously was a part-owner in a bar and grill in Topeka that didn’t work out. He saw things at that restaurant he thought could have been done differently, but his role in that business was more passive. He decided he wanted to try a restaurant where he could be the decision maker.
He has several other, more lofty goals for Haven as well, Ross said. One of them is helping to retain young talent in Wichita.
“I feel as if a lot of my peers, we go to school and then we never come back home,” said Ross, who returned to Wichita to be closer to family. “It’s good to go and live somewhere else, and it’s good to establish yourself, but we need our talent. We need people here in Wichita to pour into the next generation.”
He also wants to serve as an example to young people in the Black community who have dreams of entrepreneurship.
Haven’s full bar also will offer wine, beer and cocktails. Ross said he also is excited to introduce more people to cognac.
“I’m a huge cognac connoisseur, and I feel as if there are not a lot of offerings of cognac in the market,” he said. “That’s one thing for me, personally, that I wanted to include.”
Meanwhile, Todd Brian’s owner Chris Tincher is still working on his new space. He’s opening a new concept called Todd’s Creole Kitchen in the former Hurricane Sports Grill space in the Tyler Pointe development at 13th and Tyler.
Tincher, who had operated Todd Brian’s in Old Town Square for 12 years before deciding to move the restaurant, originally had hoped to have his new place open by late February.
But this week, he said that he ended up deciding to do a bit more with the space, so it’s taking extra time. He’s now targeting a mid-April opening.
“It’s going to be worth it,” he said. “It’s looking good.”
Stay tuned for more information about opening dates for both restaurants.
This story was originally published March 18, 2025 at 11:26 AM.
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