Need a gift for a foodie? A local artist has painted nearly 40 Wichita restaurants
He painted Jack’s North Hi Carryout before it closed and became a doughnut shop. He painted Mead’s Corner before it was torn down. He painted the Valentine Diner on North Broadway before its windows were all boarded up.
He painted Savute’s Italian Ristorante at the request of the Savute family. He painted Ty’s Diner because he loved the way the sunlight warmed the building’s red bricks. And he painted Old Mill Tasty Shop just because he wanted to.
In all, Wichita artist Bill Goffrier — well-known for the paintings of Wichita landmarks he does as part of his “Authenti-City” series — has created nearly 40 oil paintings featuring Wichita restaurants.
Some of the restaurants are no longer operating: Spaghetti Works downtown, Wichita Fish Co. on West Douglas. Stroud’s at 37th and Hillside. Albero Cafe at Central and Oliver. Many are still popular with diners today: Larkspur Bistro & Bar and The Beacon downtown, or Connie’s Mexico Cafe on the North End.
Goffrier — a onetime art teacher and member of the iconic 1980s Wichita punk band the Embarrassment — has painted 373 Wichita buildings and landmarks since he first started his Authenti-City series 11 years ago. And since 2020, Goffrier, 68, has been having archival prints of his Wichita works made and selling them from a booth he regularly sets up at the Old Town Farm & Art Market and at area craft fairs.
His best-selling prints include one of Joyland Amusement Park’s Wacky Shack and the once-climbable rocket at Riverside Park.
But his dozens of paintings of Wichita restaurants also are popular, he said, especially with foodies and nostalgic Wichitans. His painting of the original NuWay Cafe, which has been operating at 1416 W. Douglas for 95 years, is also one of his best sellers, Goffrier said.
Getting serious about his Wichita paintings has allowed Goffrier to finally work as an artist full time — a dream that he never thought he’d realize when he was younger.
And he’s come to realize, he said, that his Wichita series is as meaningful to many locals as it is to him.
“It’s become kind of an important aspect of what I’m doing, I guess, to not just document Wichita in the present, which is what I thought I was doing, but it then becomes also preserving Wichita’s past,” he said.
Finally painting full time
Goffrier was born in Illinois, but his family moved to Wichita when he was a second-grader. By the time he was in fourth grade, he realized he might be an artist. His parents had enrolled him in an oil painting class at the Wichita Art Association, and his teacher, the well-known Betty Dickerson, was particularly encouraging.
By the time he was in high school, he’d become serious about pursuing painting and drawing. His art teacher at Southeast High School, Don Weddle, helped him put together a portfolio, and he went to Wichita State University to study art. That’s also when his band, The Embarrassment, started touring. Art took a backseat for a while.
Eventually, though, Goffrier attended Boston University for graduate school, earning a master’s of fine art degree. He settled in Massachusetts, and when his son started kindergarten, Goffrier decided to start working as an art teacher — first as an adjunct professor at the New England School Art and Design in Boston, then as an elementary school art teacher.
In 2013, Goffrier returned to Wichita with his wife, Karlee, to care for his ailing father. He taught art for a short time at Franklin and Stanley elementary schools, but he got the itch to paint again. He began loading up his art supplies into a backpack and riding his electric scooter downtown to look for subjects. He’d set up his easel right on the sidewalk and create 5x7 oil paintings on the spot.
.jpg "19f60d2c-0f14-41df-b6e3-ac96ff095f14 (1).jpg")
“Once I started wanting to get out and paint, it was just natural to go visit some city locations, to kind of get reacquainted with the city,” he said.
One of his first subjects during that period was a door on the side of Union Station that was perfectly drenched in sunlight. He followed it with a painting of the old Spaghetti Works building at 619 E. William.
Soon, Goffrier was doing little art shows around town. He remembers one at the original Reverie Coffee Roasters on East Douglas in 2014, where he displayed his first two pieces of Wichita artwork alongside some pieces he’d done in Massachusetts.
Both Wichita paintings sold in that show.
Afterward, his wife had an idea: create more small oil paintings of Wichita scenes and sell them at an affordable price. Though Goffrier was still attached to the idea that, to be a serious artist, he needed to create large-scale pieces, he took the suggestion.
It worked. People started buying the originals of his Wichita paintings at exhibits around town. He also started posting his art on Facebook and would frequently make sales that way.
Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the places where Goffrier had been exhibiting — mostly restaurants and coffee shops — all shut down.
Again, Karlee had an idea. The Old Town Farm & Art Market, which operated outdoors, was up and running. Perhaps Goffrier could sell his works there. He was impressed by a booth another artist had put up and decided he’d give it a try.
At first Goffrier was selling original paintings at his booth. Sometimes, he’d paint while he was at the market so that people could observe the process. He could tell right away he was on to something.
“I had no expectations,” he said. “So I was like, ‘Oh, we actually sold some.’”
Eventually, though, he realized that people were just as happy with signed archival prints as they were with originals. And by selling prints, he could offer a wider variety. He began stocking his booth with prints of his many restaurant paintings and of other Wichita landmarks: Friends University’s clock tower, North High School, Exploration Place, the Riverside Park pagoda, the Campbell Castle, The Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, the Frank Lloyd Wright house in College Hill.
His booth was also stocked with prints he’d done of Harry’s Uptown, Larkspur, Mort’s, The Beacon, Grinder Man and Artichoke Sandwichbar.
People began to recognize Goffrier and his work. They began to stop and chat..
“It was great to interact,” he said. “I love talking to people about art and about Wichita. I started hearing all these stories about ... why a certain subject was meaningful to people. They were so appreciative and were like, “Oh, you painted this subject and let me tell you what this means to me and my family.’ And I realized that, ‘Wow, this is really connecting with people.’”
‘Part of my mission’
Goffrier, who these days paints subjects by looking at photos he shoots from several angles, estimates that he produces about 35 pictures for the Authenti-City series every year. He’s always working on one in his studio, which he set up in a four-car garage at the house he moved to over the summer. His previous home on South Hillside was flooded during heavy rainstorms in early June, which left his basement studio underwater.
Though he did lose his record collection and lots of books, he was able to save the painting he was working on and didn’t lose any art supplies that couldn’t be replaced, he said.
Besides the Wichita series, Goffrier also gets lots of work doing commissioned paintings of businesses and private homes. He’s been hired for the occasional restaurant commission: The Savute family approached him about painting their 81-year-old Italian restaurant Savute’s at 3303 N. Broadway. He painted it from two different viewpoints, he said.
“One of them, last I saw, was still hanging in their dining room,” Goffrier said. “I’m glad I got to do that. People still appreciate that.”
He has various reasons for choosing the restaurants he paints, Goffrier said. He’d never been to Ty’s Diner, which operates out of a nondescript brick building at 928 W. Second St., but someone told him that Ty’s had the best burger in town and that he had to paint it.
“I discovered that there wasn’t a whole lot visually...,” he said. “But in painting Ty’s, I found out I really got into this subtle effect of sunlight on red bricks. And if nothing else, I was just having this interesting, enlightening experience of discovering how much there could be in just red bricks with sunlight on them.”
Kristin Knebel, who has owned Ty’s Diner since 2012, said that she first learned of Goffrier’s plans to paint her restaurant when he called to ask for permission. She was aware of his work and immediately agreed.
“Honestly, I was honored that he’d ever thought about us,” Knebel said, “and I love how it turned out.”
She was even more excited when a loyal customer tracked down and gave her the original Ty’s Diner painting Goffrier had produced. It now hangs in Knebel’s living room at home — not in the restaurant.
“Are you kidding?” she said with a laugh. “It might get greasy in there.”
Sometimes, when Goffrier hears that restaurants are about to close or be demolished, he rushes to add them to the collection. That was the case with the coffee shop Mead’s Corner. Regular patrons requested that he paint the building when it was announced in 2018 that it would be torn down.
“I kind of started sensing or being open to those tips: Oh, okay, this is closed or this is going away,” he said. “And I understood ... that’s part of my mission here.”
Sometimes, Goffrier said, he’s accidentally chosen to paint restaurants or buildings that are about to disappear. That was the case with the Burger Stand building at 17th and Mosley, which had operated with various owners since the 1950s. Goffrier saw the free-standing hut, liked the way it looked, and painted it.
“And the next thing I knew, the place was completely gone,” he said.
As time went on, many of the restaurants Goffrier had already painted went out of business, places like The Donut Whole at 1720 E. Douglas Ave., and Jacks’ North Hi Carryout at 603 W. 13th St.
People who loved those businesses were always delighted to find them captured in one of his paintings.
Goffrier, though, is baffled by one aspect of his Authenti-City series’ success: Why, he wonders, does it matter so much to people that significant buildings and landmarks are painted? Why not just take a photograph?
He became so consumed by the question that he began surveying his social media followers, asking them what they thought made a painting of a subject different from a photograph.
“I started to understand that, in general, people liked the sense that there was another person who was taking the time to really appreciate this subject and celebrate it by bringing out what might be beautiful about it,” he said. “In some cases, subjects could be really ordinary, really homely and nondescript. And it’s always my job to find beauty in that.”
Where to get Bill Goffrier paintings
Old Town Farm & Art Market: Goffrier is now in his sixth season at the Old Town Farm & Art Market and plans to have his booth set up at its remaining holiday markets, which are from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and Dec. 20 at the Farm & Art Market Plaza, 835 E. First St.
Local shops: Two Delano businesses — Vortex Souvenir at 607 W. Douglas and Milkfloat at 535 W. Douglas — carry Goffrier’s signed archival prints.
Online: Several original paintings are pictured on Goffrier’s website, goffrier.com, where people can browse and then email him for pricing.
Wichita restaurants Goffrier has painted
Spaghetti Works (three different angles); Artichoke Sandwichbar; Savute’s (three different angles); Felipe’s Jr.’ Nu Way Cafe, (1416 W. Douglas, two different angles); Larkspur (two different angles); Watermark Books & Cafe; Reverie Coffee Roasters (original location); The Beacon; Old Mill Tasty Shop; Ty’s Diner; Connie’s Mexico Cafe; Station 8 BBQ; Grinder Man; Beautiful Day Cafe; Prost (original location); Pizza Hut at WSU; Wichita Fish Co. (West Douglas); Stroud’s; Harry’s Uptown Burger Stand; Albero Cafe (East Central); Dyne Quik Valentine Diner (1202 N. Broadway); Mead’s Corner (three different angles); Jack’s North Hi Carryout; The Donut Whole; Papa’s Ice Cream & Treats (Clifton Square).
.jpg)