Bella Vita to bring Italian food to West St.
In true Italian style, Lory Wooley is making her new Bella Vita Bistro a family affair. Wooley is opening the restaurant in the former Kebab House space at 120 N. West St. (which many people remember as Cafe Istanbul and the Grinder Man ).
Crystal and Adrian Prud Homme DeLodder , Wooley's daughter and son-in-law, will run the restaurant with her.
Wooley says her husband, Paul , "claims I bribed them to move to Wichita so that I could be near my grandbabies."
The Wooleys moved here from Michigan two years ago when Paul Wooley, a physician, became chief operating officer for the Center of Innovation for Biomaterials in Orthopaedic Research .
Bella Vita, which opens March 1, means "beautiful life" in Italian.
Neither the Wooleys nor the Prud Homme DeLodders are Italian, but Lory Wooley says, "We were under the impression that the town was in real need of Italian."
Adrian Prud Homme DeLodder is the restaurant's chef. He says the food will be Northern Italian, which includes a lot of slow-roasted and braised dishes. He'll also offer a lot of brown and white sauces, "not just the typical red sauce."
Prud Homme DeLodder says he'll make everything from scratch and offer a lot of unusual items, such as cannelloni crepes, but nothing "too far-fetched to where people are scared."
Wooley says she's applied for a full liquor license but plans to serve only beer and wine initially. Eventually, she plans to offer some liqueurs as well.
Initially, the restaurant will be open for dinner only Monday through Saturday.
Wooley says she's been in the restaurant business since she was 16 "with the exception of a little bout of real estate."
She used to have a couple of large restaurants in Florida.
Bella Vita will seat 48.
"This is intimate," Wooley says. "This is nice. This is going to be where people want to come."
Planning stage
You may have noticed that about 20 houses have been cleared from the southwest corner of Kellogg and Oliver.
Nothing is planned, though — at least not yet.
"We're just clearing the site," says Jeff Walenta , who is working with his father, Don , to develop the corner. "We're just prepping it so we're better prepared to deliver a site when ready."
The property is five acres. It's platted for three pad sites. Ideally, Walenta says he'd like to attract fast food or full-service restaurants.
"Either one would be great."
Walenta isn't sure how long potential deals could take.
"That's always a tough question," he says.
"The market's getting better, yes. It's just finding that right tenant."
On her own
Cathy Hetterscheidt has left Lilli Mae's to open her own restaurant.
Last fall, Hetterscheidt and Judi Young opened the country cooking Lilli Mae's in the former 54 Diner space at 206 E. Kellogg.
Hetterscheidt says the arrangement didn't work well for her, so now she's opening Cathy's Diner in the former Takhoma Burger space at 816 S. Broadway.
"I'm going out completely on my own this time," Hetterscheidt says.
She says a lot of the customers she used to serve when she worked for Piccadilly followed her to Lilli Mae's, and she thinks they'll come to the new diner.
"I have a huge following," she says.
Cathy's Diner will be open daily from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Hetterscheidt says she'll serve traditional breakfasts along with burgers and specials for lunch.
The front part of the restaurant will be a diner, and within a year Hetterscheidt hopes to open a soda fountain in the back.
She plans to open the restaurant by March 1.
You don't say
"It's the usual corporate claptrap and doesn't help me at all."
—Wichitan Janice Brecht on the form letter she received from Waldenbooks after complaining that the bookstore at Towne West Square was closing
This story was originally published February 17, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Bella Vita to bring Italian food to West St.."