Ruben’s Mexican Grill has found a new home, will depart Delano soon
Ruben’s Mexican Grill is on the move. In fact, the move will happen pretty quickly.
Tony Madrigal, who purchased the Delano restaurant a little more than a year ago from founders Ruben and Anita Acosta, has chosen a new spot for the 28-year-old-year-old restaurant, which has been at 915 W. Douglas since 2013.
He and three of his children, who own the restaurant with him, are moving it to 400 S. Emporia, a building across the street from Intrust Bank Arena that Solly & Jude’s left earlier this year.
Ruben’s will keep operating at its current address until Saturday, July 17. The owners hope to have the restaurant reopened in the new space the week of July 27.
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“Ruben’s is not a building,” said Deona Madrigal, who helps run the restaurant with her husband (and Tony’s son) Stephen. “The legacy of Ruben’s is in the food, in the name. And none of that is going anywhere.”
The owners have already started telling their regular customers about the move, and soon, they’ll start posting signs on tables. The new space will have roughly the same amount of seating and has its own dedicated parking spaces, Tony Madrigal said. It will also have something Ruben’s hasn’t had before: patio seating.
When he bought the restaurant from Acosta, Tony Madrigal said, he didn’t want anything about the restaurant to change. He feels the same way about the move: The menu and the name won’t change: just the address.
Tony Madrigal said he’s relocating for a couple of reasons. One is that parking has become an issue for his older customers. Though Ruben’s has a dedicated parking lot just to the east of its entrance, customers patronizing other nearby businesses often fill it up, he said. And patrons of Club Billiards next door often are occupying most of the diagonal spaces in front of the building.
The other reason he decided to move, he said: He couldn’t come to an agreement with his landlord about repairs he felt were needed in the building.
“So we decided to move on,” Tony Madrigal said. “We started looking. We looked all over town. We wanted to stay as close as we could to this location.“
Ruben’s has a dedicated following, Tony Madrigal said, and sales have even increased since he took over. He thinks customers will follow him to the new address and wants them to know that Ruben’s will have its own dedicated parking spaces at the new building. Even on nights when the arena is having an event, customers will still be able to find parking.
The new space offers possibilities for growth, too, Tony Madrigal said. He’s excited about the Wichita Biomedical campus opening nearby and says that the building on Emporia has unused space he could take over if he needs to expand in the future.
In addition to his son Stephen, Madrigal’s partners in the restaurant are his children Mary and Jesse. Stephen and Deona help run the restaurant, as does their son, Ricky.
Deona Madrigal said that she thinks the restaurant will be fine as long as customers get the message about the move.
“I think the following is good enough that as long as people know. . .,” she said. “I’m just afraid they’re going to come here, and they’re going to say, ‘Oh my gosh, they closed, They bought it, and now they’re out of business.’ That’s what I’m afraid of, and I don’t want that.”
Madrigal founded Madrigal & Associates insurance in 1969 and ran it until he sold it in 2019. He previously owned a restaurant called La Familia, which operated in the early 2000s at 945 W. 31st St. South. There’s now a liquor store in the building.
When Ruben Acosta was ready to retire, he approached Madrigal — who had been his insurance agent — about buying the business. Tony Madrigal had been wanting to get back in the restaurant business and decided that a business with a built-in following was a better risk.
He and his family were careful to keep things just as the Acostas had left them. They kept the same staff and the same cook, who has been with the restaurant for 11 years.
The Acostas first opened Ruben’s in 1998 inside the Farm & Art building downtown, where the Museum of World Treasures operates now.
They were there until 2003, when their restaurant was one of many businesses evicted from the building as the owners moved away from retail. Ruben’s moved that same year to the corner of Douglas and McLean.
They were there until 2013, when they moved to the current location at 915 W. Douglas.
The Madrigals said they’d provide an update when they’re ready to open at their new address.
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