Wichita chef’s new business will feature several local restaurant concepts in one space
The cafeteria on the walkway level of one of Wichita’s most recognizable downtown office buildings — the glass encased Ruffin Building at 100 N. Broadway — was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened.
Every work day since, the workers in that building have had to walk past the empty space on their way to and from the parking garage and stare hungrily into the void.
But soon, it will be reactivated, and a well-known Wichita chef is behind it.
Kayson Chong, the owner of Jumbo’s Beef & Brew at 3750 N. Woodlawn, is about to open a food-hall concept there called Plentibloom Market & Cafe, and it will offer dishes from popular Wichita restaurants, including not only Chong’s Jumbo Beef & Brews but also N&J Cafe, Bronx Pizza & Pints and Puerto Vallarta Mexican Restaurant.
The setup will be similar to what people might see at a hospital cafeterias: Diners will walk into a circular central space and browse items being offered from several different counters. In addition to fresh-made options from the local restaurants, Plentibloom will also have a self-serve salad bar, a hot-and-cold sandwich bar, coffee machines, pastries and breakfast burritos. Customers will get their items in to-go containers then pay at the registers as they exit.
They can either take their food with them or stay and eat in the large dining area outside the cafe that’s overflowing with tables and chairs.
Chong said he plans to debut Plentibloom — which will be open to the public — after Memorial Day. He hopes his customers will be the hundreds of people who work in the Ruffin Building, which now is about 70% occupied, as well as the many apartment dwellers, hotel guests and medical students who are downtown during the week.
Chong said he also hopes that the cafe will become a destination for people who aren’t necessarily based downtown but want to visit a place where they can find lots of different restaurant concepts in one convenient spot.
Plentibloom will serve breakfast and lunch and also will have a market space where people can pick up things like chips, cookies, candy, gum, fruit and grab-and-go sandwiches and salads.
The general manager will be Alex Mohr, who most recently worked as the food and beverage director at the Ambassador Hotel and also had a long stint at Georges French Bistro. Three years ago, Mohr shared his plans to open a healthy-eating restaurant called NuTree, and though he was never able to find the right space for his concept, he did have it running as a ghost kitchen for a time.
Plentibloom will give him a place to roll out some of his NuTree items, he said. The cafe, which will open at 7 a.m., will offer not only a hot breakfast buffet that includes things like eggs, sausage and potatoes, but it will also have healthy grab-and-go items from NuTree, items like breakfast sandwiches, granola bars, smoothies, fruit juice shots and energy gummies.
The outside restaurants will send their dishes over to Plentibloom each day, though Chong’s staff may eventually start preparing them on site. N&J will serve shawarma plates and wraps plus rice, tabbouleh and hummus. Bronx Pizzeria will serve pizza by the slice. Puerto Vallarta will have carne asada, chicken and carnitas that can be served in tacos or as part of a plate. And Jumbo’s Beef & Brew will serve things like burgers, wings, fries and chicken fried steak.
The Ruffin Building — which has the Ninth Floor Club (previously known as The Petroleum Club) on the top floor — houses not only Sedgwick County government offices but also big tenants like LK Architecture, Law Co. and the Hite, Fanning and Honeyman law firm.
Tenants have been curious about the remodeling work happening in the cafe, Mohr said.
Mohr said he talked to an employee from a new firm that just moved into the building who said that learning about the impending opening of Plentibloom helped incentivize the owners to sign a lease there.
Chong and Mohr said that they hope that the lure of several popular Wichita restaurant concepts under one roof will help Plentibloom find a solid customer base, even outside of the on-site workers.
“I think this will be such a big draw,” Mohr said. “There’s such a lack of options downtown.”
The hours for Plentibloom will be 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Customers from outside the building will be able to either park in public spaces in the covered garage across Broadway from the Ruffin Building and access the cafe from a walkway that joins the two buildings. or they’ll be able to access the building from any of the street-level entrances and take an escalator from the main floor directly to the cafe.
Chong has lots of other ideas for the new space, he said. Not only is he toying with the idea of adding poke as an option (Chong co-founded a poke restaurant in California called Mainland Poke a decade ago) but he’s also offering aspiring restaurateurs a chance to test out their concepts at Plentibloom.
He’s open to letting people use his commercial kitchen space after hours for food prep, he said, and he also envisions people putting on pop-ups in the space — using the kitchen to prepare their items then selling them alongside Plentibloom’s other offerings during regular hours.
Anyone interested in the idea should email Chong and Mohr at eat@plentibloom.com
Watch later this month for more information about Plentibloom’s opening.
This story was originally published May 8, 2025 at 2:35 PM.
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