Mystery menu posted this week was from Wichita restaurant open from 2004 to 2011
Earlier this week, I issued a challenge to longtime Wichita foodies.
After digging through a folder filled with menus I’d held onto since I first started writing about restaurants for The Wichita Eagle 26 years ago, I shared two snippets of one of those menus and asked people to guess where the menu had come from. One of the snippets I shared listed a tilapia sandwich, a Reuben and a raspberry smoked turkey sandwich on ciabatta. Another listed a grilled kefta on pita and a Santa Fe salad.
Several people responded to the challenge and offered logical guesses, including Piccadilly Grill, which operated at 7728 E. Central from 1989 to 2015 and offered dishes similar to ones on the mystery menu. Another good guess was Cafe Chantilly, which Antoine Toubia ran from 1983 until 1993 at 6921 E. Kellogg.
But the menu was actually from Uptown Bistro, a restaurant that Sabor Latin Bar & Grille owner Melad Stephen opened in early 2004 in the Old Town Square spot that’s now occupied by Yo-B.
Back then, Stephan was best known for his Nouvelle Cafe at 3101 N. Rock Road. But he was about to launch a run of restaurants and bars in Old Town Square, and he started with Uptown Bistro. Stephan partnered with his cousin George Youssef (who now owns Georges French Bistro), who had come to Wichita six years earlier to work at Nouvelle Cafe.
Old Town Square had just opened the year before and was becoming a destination for lunching downtown workers and evening diners wanting to grab a meal before heading to the Warren Old Town Theatre, which had just opened in the square. Uptown Bistro’s vibe was classy yet casual, and its logo and menu featured a distinctive Art Deco font.
The restaurant served many of The Mediterranean-inspired dishes that Stephan’s Nouvelle Cafe had but also offered pasta dishes, panini sandwiches, salads and gourmet desserts. The menu also included sweet and savory crepes, pasta dishes, and entrees like steak frites and herb mustard-crusted chicken. And anyone in 2026 who peruses the full menu, posted below, will likely find it hard to believe that sandwiches were $5.99, steak frites were $8.99 and grilled salmon was $9.99.
Youssef left Uptown Bistro a year after it opened and was replaced by chef Jeremy Wade, who today owns Napoli Italian Eatery at 7718 E. 37th St. North and Magnolia Cafe at 2424 N. Woodlawn.
Stephan would also open Bellini’s Italian Pizzeria (in the current Sabor space) in 2005; Egg-Cetera nearby at 242 N. Mosley, also in 2005; and Oeno, a wine bar that operated across the square from Uptown Bistro from 2006 until 2016. In 2007, he abandoned the Bellini’s concept and opened Sabor in the space.
Wade was at Uptown Bistro until the spring of 2008, when he left and embarked on a tour through the kitchens of YaYa’s Eurobistro, Lakeside Club and Siena Tuscan Steakhouse.
Uptown Bistro lasted until April 2, 2011, when Stephan closed it, saying that it hadn’t lived up to his standards. The following month, he opened an Italian restaurant in the space called Luca Italian Kitchen. It lasted until 2013, when Cafe Bel Ami owner Nabil Bacha bought it and turned it into Yo-B, which offers self-serve frozen custard and burgers.
Today, Sabor is Stephan’s only restaurant, which was a longtime favorite of Harrison Ford when he would visit Wichita.
Keep a lookout for my next mystery menu: I’ll post it soon.
Uptown Bistro menu
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