Doo-Dah Diner owners selling to longtime customers who are also in the business
The first thing the new owners of Doo-Dah Diner want Wichita to know — even before who they are — is that nothing is going to change.
Except for one thing: They’ll soon expand the hours at the popular restaurant to seven days a week.
Other than that, everything at Doo-Dah Diner will continue to operate as it has since founders Patrick and Timirie Shibley opened it in September 2012.
Brothers Jeff and Jay Miller have agreed to buy Doo-Dah Diner, a busy breakfast and brunch spot that over the years has earned visits from celebrities, shout outs on national television, and inclusion on countless national “best of” lists. They’ll become the official owners on June 16.
The Millers, both longtime customers of the diner, are also Five Guys Burgers & Fries franchisees and have three Wichita restaurants: at 1025 E. Douglas; at 2929 N. Rock Road; and at 3807 N. Maize Road. They also once owned Rita’s Italian Ice stores in Wichita, and in August 2023, they opened a location of the Utah-based Sticky Bird chicken restaurant at 616 S. Tyler. (The brothers closed it in November, citing “circumstances out of our control.”)
After they shuttered Sticky Bird, the brothers say, they decided that they weren’t interested in owning any more restaurants. Then, they heard that the Shibleys were looking for buyers.
“My wife and I were done,” said Jay Miller. “We said, ‘We’re just sticking with what we got. We’re done.’ And then Jeff calls me up and goes, ‘What about the Doo-Dah Diner?’ And I said, ‘Oh, the one place! The one place!’ Of course!’ I tried to find every reason not to do it and then just ran out of excuses not to do it.”
The Shibleys, whose faces, personalities and over-the-top breakfast dishes helped build the restaurants’ brand, say they realized they had to step back from the diner shortly after Patrick, 59, was diagnosed with stage four metastatic prostate cancer in late 2023.
Though his cancer has responded to hormone therapy and is essentially “asleep” at the moment, it’s not in remission and will return, Timirie said. The drugs he has to take are causing rough side effects, and working in the diner is no longer an option for Patrick — a notoriously in-command chef who has always wanted his menu executed to his high standards.
The couple decided it was best that they let the diner go, and they started quietly looking for a buyer. They had one lined up at the end of last year, but at the last minute, the deal didn’t work out. Then, one of the diner’s longtime staff members mentioned to Jeff Miller that Doo-Dah was up for sale. Negotiations started not long after.
The brothers say that what drew them to the deal — aside from their longtime personal affinity for the place — was the idea of being able to call their own shots.
“It’s important to say that we’ve been here long enough that the idea of owning a locally based establishment is very attractive to us,” said Jeff Miller, who over the years has been a regular diner at the Doo-Dah counter. “...And I will tell you, I love the idea of not having a corporate overlord. Just for the financials, we have to give a certain percentage right off the top. And we don’t have to do that with this.”
The Shibleys’ last day at the diner will be June 15, Father’s Day. They’ll be offering a Father’s Day brunch that day but will likely be too busy to chat with longtime customers and hoping people will come in on Saturday, June 14, for a “send off brunch” in their honor. That day, they’ll have more time to talk and will give away diner memorabilia.
Most members of the Shibley’s staff, though, will remain in place including longtime employee Autumn Norris, the restaurant’s general manager who is now running the kitchen, and her mother, Laura Shoemake, who is the diner’s lead server.
The Shibleys say they plan to take at least a month to “de-Doo-Dah,” preferably on a beach somewhere, and then they’ll plan their next steps. Timirie said that she’ll definitely be keeping her Doo-Dads Permanent Jewelry business that she sometimes ran from the diner.
Walking away is going to be hard, the couple predicts. But they have confidence in the Millers.
“This is like selling our child — our only child. And I can’t imagine doing it feeling any less confident and any less rest assured,” Timirie said. “They’ve been our brothers in the business through all of the chapters. They’ve seen every single chapter.”
Any of the tweaks the Millers have planned for the diner won’t be noticed by customers, they said, except for one. Sometime this summer, they’ll expand the hours to seven days a week. The Shibleys have been closing the restaurant on Mondays.
Any other changes will happen behind the scenes.
“Our goal is to keep what the Doo-Dah is,” Jay Miller said. “We don’t have any plans to come in and go, ‘We’re going to just change this all up.’ Why would we? We were in love with the Doo-Dah. Why would we come in and change it?”
Patrick, the son of Wichita restaurant and nightclub pioneer Kay Shibley of Kamiel’s Club fame, said leaving the restaurant behind would be bittersweet. Longtime customers got used to hearing his deep voice rising above the din of the kitchen, adding to the atmosphere.
He was loud in the kitchen, he said, because he cared so much about what he was doing.
“Doo-Dah isn’t just a restaurant. It is an extension of who I am, who we are,” he said. “Every dish is rooted in love, every detail matters, and nothing made me happier than watching someone’s eyes light up with the first bite.”
A Johnson County Community College culinary school graduate, Patrick worked for years as a manager for YaYa’s Eurobistro’s former parent company and also had worked with the team that opened Gaslamp Grille.
He had been married to Timirie for two years when he told her he wanted to open his own restaurant. The pair turned an old Radio Shack building that had been home over the years to a string of short-lived restaurants into a successful breakfast and brunch spot serving piled-high plates inspired by the Guy Fieri show “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.”
The menu featured dishes like crab cake eggs Benedict, a breakfast burrito smothered with green chili, banana bread french toast, meatloaf, and the Brutus, which is a chicken fried steak piled with hash browns, caramelized onions, sausage gravy and two eggs. Within six months, with just word-of-mouth advertising, the diner found itself packed with people willing to wait however long it took to get a table.
Five years after opening, the couple closed down the original diner for a massive six-month remodel that modernized and doubled the size of the dining room. The new space opened in July 2019 and has stayed busy since.
Over the years, Doo-Dah Diner has earned a reputation for being a second-chance employer — giving people who may have struggled with addiction or finding a job after jail stints a shot. The diner also earned a reputation for attracting celebrities like Harrison Ford and Henry Winkler and it garnered adoration from a group of devoted ESPN announcers who discovered the diner while covering basketball at Wichita State University and haven’t stopped talking about it — on air — since.
Those who want to keep in touch with the Shibleys can follow their journey at @doohdahmom on Instagram, and people can also check up on Patrick’s health through posts at caringbridge.org
Also, Doo-Dah Diner employees are setting up a “Blessing Box” at the restaurant from June 10 through June 14, and members of the community are invited to drop by with photos, cards and donations that will serve as a farewell to the Shibleys.
This story was originally published June 3, 2025 at 5:03 AM.
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