Wichita’s uBreakiFix franchisees plan to open a store that T-Mobile vacated

UPDATED — UBreakiFix partners Bill Ramsey and Bryson Butts are preparing to open their fourth Wichita-area store near Kellogg and West Street. Before they could start construction, though, they had to take apart a T-Mobile store that the previous owners appear to have walked away from at 583 S. West St.

“We spent a whole day just disassembling that,” Ramsey said. “If anybody wants to put together a T-Mobile store, we’ve got all the stuff.”

Ramsey and Butts have been eyeing that strip center for some time. They wanted the end cap but were told the center wanted a restaurant for the spot.

“A few months later Qdoba was in there,” Ramsey said.

Others suggested uBreakiFix locate a little further up West Street, but Ramsey said he held out since he knew T-Mobile and Sprint would be merging and the former T-Mobile spot would likely come open.

“We’ll just wait on it,” he said.

“I was insistent that we were going to stay between Taft and Kellogg,” Ramsey said. “It’s a premier spot.”

Krista Racine of J.P. Weigand & Sons and Stephanie Wise of John T. Arnold Associates handled the deal.

There also are uBreakiFix stores in Derby and at NewMarket Square and the Village at Greenwich at 21st and Greenwich.

Ramsey said that likely will be it for the market, especially since the franchise now allows its mobile phone repair vans to service all types of phones, not only Samsung ones. The pandemic changed that.

The Wichita area uBreakiFix stores already have one van and another on the way. They operate for a $30 fee plus the cost of the repair.

Ramsey said the vans will allow his business to expand to places such as Hutchinson and Newton.

“We’re going to have the area kind of opened up a little bit so we’ll be able to move outside the city.”

Look for the West Street store to open Nov. 1.

This story was originally published September 9, 2020 at 11:11 AM.