Potential buyers walk through the Anchor space ahead of upcoming auction
The longtime home and contents of a Wichita restaurant and bar is being sold through an online auction, and on Thursday afternoon several prospective buyers stopped by to tour what’s left of The Anchor, 1109 E. Douglas, which was seized in late April by state tax officials.
McCurdy Real Estate & Auction, which on July 9, will auction off the three-story Anchor building plus the buildings attached to it at 1113 and 1115 E. Douglas, put on a Thursday-afternoon open house so that interested bidders could get an in-person look. The auction will be conducted online.
McCurdy has split the auction into two parts: The Anchor building plus the buildings that previously held Anchor Meat Market and Hell Bomb Tattoo make up Lot 1. The buildings’ contents, including all “trade fixtures and business assets” — tables and chairs, kitchen equipment and outside signage — are part of Lot 2.
Bidding closes at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday for the property and at 2:45 p.m. for the business assets. As of late Thursday afternoon, the high bid listed on the properties was $500,000. The reserve price of $75,000 for the trade fixtures and business assets had not yet been met.
People who visited the open house on Thursday were asked to sign in at the bar then were given a 26-page property information packet that included a detailed history of the properties and stipulations of the auction. They also received a four-page list of business assets in the Anchor and in the Anchor Meat Market, which operated at 1113 E. Douglas.
Within the first half hour of the open house, a couple of local restaurant owners and an out-of-town business owner had toured the property. People walked through the buildings in small groups of two or three, clutching the information packets and talking quietly, occasionally stopping to stare up at the walls or ceilings.
The building on the west end of the property where the Anchor had operated since former owner Schane Gross first opened it in 2004 was mostly void of anything identifiable. All that remained were tables, chairs, bar stools, a long row of beer taps and a few flags and beer signs still attached to the brick walls. Visitors also could walk though the kitchen — where the restaurant’s famous Haystacks and sweet potato fries were once prepared.
Those who toured the Anchor building were able to walk up old, creaky stairs to the second and third floors above the restaurant. Both had been completely cleaned out, and both were wide-open spaces with wood floors and giant windows affording views of Douglas.
The former butcher shop space was still full of all the refrigerator cases and butchering tools Gross used when she ran the meat shop, which first opened in 2014. The building on the east end of the block, which once was home to Hell Bomb Tattoo, was stacked with what a McCurdy employee called “personal belongings,” including some art, a collection of tabletop globes and a fish fashioned from old license plates.
The two neon signs people associate with the restaurant — the one of the woman perched on an anchor that hangs above the main restaurant entrance and the window sign depicting a pig and that flashes the words “Eat Meat” — will be included in Lot 2 with the trade fixtures and business assets.
Several weeks before agents showed up to seize the properties, which Gross owned, she’d closed The Anchor, and a sign had been posted on the door saying that the restaurant would reopen soon with new management.
On April 30, agents took over the buildings and placed red “seized” signs in the windows. A few days later, the Kansas Department of Revenue issued a news release that said it had executed warrants for nonpayment of sales, withholding and liquor drink tax totaling $32,549.07. The release also said that the seized assets would be sold at a public auction and that proceeds would pay for delinquent taxes.
At the time of the seizure, Sedgwick County District Court records showed the state had filed seven tax warrants against the Anchor since June 10, 2024, for unpaid sales, withholding and liquor excise taxes in 2024 and early 2025. Six of the warrants had been filed this year. Court records showed outstanding taxes paid in two of the cases.
In the spring of 2023, Gross expanded her business portfolio in Wichita by opening a restaurant called Rail Hoppers in a new building at 3622 N. Oliver, in the District 96 development. But she closed it in April 2024, saying she wanted to focus more on the Anchor. Natasha Gandhi-Rue took over the space for her restaurant The Kitchen.
Gross also had closed the Anchor in February 2023 so that she could perform a remodel that removed the wall separating the two halves of the restaurant. It reopened in early 2024.
This story was originally published July 3, 2025 at 6:34 PM.
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