Family hopes to keep this 56-year-old restaurant going despite founder’s recent death
The family of The Grinder Man founder Paul Doyon plans to keep the restaurant going following Doyon’s death at age 89 in late April.
But they’re still figuring out the details: The restaurant is tied up in probate for now, and while the family works with an attorney to sort that out, the restaurant’s manager of 42 years will keep The Grinder Man going.
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“I just want to see the legacy go longer than what it did,” said Doyon’s youngest son, Bryan. “I’d like to at least see it go until he would have turned 100 or something.”
At its height in the 1980s, The Grinder Man had restaurants all over Wichita as well as in Arkansas City, Winfield, Lawrence and Ponca City, Oklahoma. Derby also had one at 130 N. Baltimore in the mid-1970s. The Pawnee restaurant opened in 1981 and occupies one of only two still-operating Valentine Diners in Wichita. (The other is Sport Burger at 134 N. Hillside.)
In 1973, the flat-roofed front brick section of The Grinder Man building on Pawnee was added onto the A-frame Valentine building, which had once housed a Griff’s Burger Bar location, to accommodate a hamburger restaurant called Brown Kastle.
Bryan Doyon remembers that back then — when Grinder Man and Sub & Stuff owned the sandwich market in Wichita — his father would regularly wear three-piece suits to work and would walk around with a pipe in his mouth. Bryan said he remembers visiting his father’s office and helping himself to coffee.
Locations of The Grinder Man slowly closed over the years, and by 1991, only 510 E. Pawnee and 120 N. West St. remained. The West Street location closed in 2002, leaving just the Pawnee shop.
Doyon, who had a Rhode Island accent and a great sense of humor, his family said, eventually became the sole owner of The Grinder Man. He didn’t have to be in the restaurants all the time because of his ability to find good managers, Bryan Doyon said, but he stopped in every morning and would call at 2 p.m. sharp each day to see how things were going.
“If it weren’t for that restaurant, my dad probably would have died 10 years ago,” Bryan said. “That restaurant gave him a purpose to wake up every morning and go in. Whether they were open or not, he’d go down there.”
On the morning of April 28, Doyon made his usual stop at the restaurant. He died suddenly later that afternoon at home, said his wife of 68-years, Marilyn.
Her husband was a patriot, she said. He also was a storyteller, and he had plenty of stories to tell, especially from his time serving in the United States Coast Guard. Doyon was stationed out of Boston on the icebreaker USCGC Eastwind W279, which was tasked with escorting resupply ships through the ice to bases in the Arctic region. Doyon spent time in the North Pole region during his enlistment. Because of that, he hated cold weather.
Bryan Doyon said he remembers his father would often show slides of photos he’d taken while in the North Pole, telling his family that he’d had a choice between the post he took and one in Australia.
“He’d say, ‘If I ever have the money, I could always go to Australia. But who’s going to get a trip to the North Pole?’” he said.
Bryan Doyon and his brothers, Michael and Paul Jr., all worked in Grinder Man restaurants as teenagers and young men. He said his father never pressured his sons to take over the restaurant. In fact, he never brought it up.
Doyon wants the restaurant to retain its friendly, customer-focused atmosphere. He doesn’t want to make changes, except in one area: Grinder Man, at Paul Doyon’s insistence, has always-been a cash-only business. Bryan said that he’d like to see Grinder Man eventually begin accepting credit cards and even begin working with third-party delivery services like DoorDash.
The Grinder Man, for now, will continue operating as it always has, serving grinders with Italian meats, heroes and subs plus sides, including deviled eggs.
The Grinder Man’s hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. It’s closed on Saturdays and Sundays.
This story was originally published June 1, 2026 at 4:44 AM.
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