N&J Cafe owners will open new west-side restaurant this week. Take a peek inside:
Five years ago, brothers Nick and John Srour bought the Wichita restaurant that their parents founded and that they grew up in.
This week, they’ll make their first big move as owners.
The Srour brothers are ready to open a west-side version of N&J Cafe, which has operated at 5600 E. Lincoln since 1991. They say they’ll open the doors to their new N&J Mediterranean Bar & Grill, which is taking over the former home of The Sweet Spot at 8448 W. Central, on Friday, June 27.
The new restaurant will have the same menu of Lebanese favorites like shawarma, gyro, cabbage rolls, grape leaves, kebbe, hummus and baba ganouj that made the original cafe famous. The main difference between the two, Nick Srour said, is that the west-side restaurant will have a full bar and even will offer its own menu of craft cocktails. The original restaurant serves just beer and wine.
The west-side N&J will also have a big new patio, though it won’t be ready for a month or so. A mother duck built her nest on the patio, Nick said, and they couldn’t start construction until she and her ducklings moved on, which happened just as construction was wrapping up inside.
Another difference: The owners kept the open kitchen that The Sweet Spot owners built, so people will be able to watch the cooks prepare the food. The new building also has a big private room in the back that eventually will be available for meetings or private events.
The dining room at the west-side restaurant can seat 165 people and is filled with a mix of booths and tables and chairs. And just like at the original restaurant, customers will be able to seat themselves.
The brothers also installed a long, marble bar lined with stools along the west side of the space. Otherwise, they focused on turning the old Sweet Spot space — which had a dark, fine-dining feel — into a light-filled room that has family photos decorating nearly every wall. They include lots of photos of Nick and John as boys and several of their parents, Mona and the late John Sr. In fact, when customers step into the dining room, the first thing they’ll notice is a sassy photo of their mother holding a cigarette that was taken years ago. It’s one of the brothers’ favorite photos.
“We have these little pictures to show that, hey, this a family restaurant,” said Nick, the older of the two brothers. “Those don’t open up anymore in the modern day... We want people to know that we’re from here, we were born down the road, and we’ve been doing this for a long time.”
The new N&J will be open an hour later than the original. Its hours will be 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Third generation
Nick and John Srour’s father, John Srour Sr., grew up in a family of pastry chefs in Zahle, Lebanon. He decided to move to the United States and ended up in Michigan. But in 1986, Latour founder Antoine Toubia recruited him to Wichita to make pastries for his restaurant, The Olive Tree.
In 1991, Srour Sr. partnered with Antoine’s brother, Naji, and opened N&J Bakery in the strip center at Lincoln and Edgemoor. Their specialty was authentic pita bread.
Two years later, Srour Sr. and his then-wife, Mona, added seating and lunch and dinner menus that featured dishes Srour Sr. grew up eating in Lebanon. The restaurant quickly became a Wichita favorite.
The brothers’ earliest memories are at the restaurant, said Nick, who would often run the cash register when he was just a boy. The brothers always thought they would take over the family business, and they started by running John’s Pita Bakery, which runs out of the same strip center as the original N&J Cafe and is where the fresh, fluffy pita bread used not only by N&J but by many other Mediterranean restaurants across the region is made.
The Srour brothers lost their father in 2011: John Sr. died at age 70 after a battle with leukemia. Their mother, who owned and ran the restaurant for 15 years, retired in 2019 and sold the cafe to her sons. Mona is now 79. (And by the way, Nick says, she loves the photo of her hanging near the register.)
When the brothers first bought the cafe from their mother, they shared with Wichita big plans to remodel it both inside and out and to add a sit-down bar. But when building supplies became more expensive during the pandemic, the brothers decided to put those plans on hold. They still hope to eventually add a bar, Nick said, but for now, they’ll focus on their new restaurant.
The Srour brothers are both now fathers themselves: Nick has a 5-month-old son, Pierce, and John has boys River, 8, and Noah, 4. The three boys are N&J’s next generation, the brothers say, and little River even says he wants to become a chef.
If their boys do decide to go into the family business, Nick said, the brothers want their sons to feel the same kind of love from Wichita that they always have.
“I know people that I’ve seen coming to my restaurant since I was this big doing the register, and I still see them coming all the time,” Nick said. “When you go to N&J, you feel like, ‘Oh, I know the guy who started this. I know his son. I had my first date here. My dad took me here once.’
“We want to build a casual family restaurant. We don’t want to be an Applebee’s or a Chili’s where you go in and you leave. We want you to be part of this thing that we’re building.”
This story was originally published June 20, 2025 at 5:03 AM.
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