One of Wichita’s oldest restaurant groups has decided to close two of its four stores

The NuWay restaurant at Normandie Center closed this week, and the East Harry NuWay’s last day in business is Sunday.

Owner Chris Stong said there are a number of factors involved in the closing of the famous crumbly hamburger restaurants, but “the short answer is COVID.”

At Normandie, which is at the northeast corner of Central and Woodlawn, he said the landlords “were kind enough to help accommodate us.”

“There was probably a year and change left on the lease, but I think they had interest from other parties, and they were very kind to help us out of a bad situation.”

NuWay opened at Normandie in the 1980s in a spot that was demolished in 2021 to make room for a McDonald’s. That was under a previous Normandie owner.

“It was never really the same after that,” Stong said.

He said he thought the new Normandie spot was so close to the old one “that our regular customers literally would park their car in the same place” and simply turn in a different direction to get to the restaurant.

That’s not what happened, he said.

“We had calls and complaints and confusion.”

That’s despite a 15-foot banner he had up for three months announcing the new space.

Then came the pandemic, which Stong said he thinks hurt small businesses much worse than national chains.

“They have a huge fund of advertising, and they can say, ‘Hey, we’re still open for business.’ ”

For him, he said, “It was at zero sales for weeks and weeks.”

After the initial pandemic closings, Stong said sales got back up to 25% to 50% of what they had been. He said it wasn’t enough.

“It ended up being a pretty simple business decision.”

Also, he said, labor costs are between 150% and 175% of what they used to be. The rising cost of food has hurt as well.

Despite labor and food costs, Stong is keeping two NuWays open.

“Central and Ridge does well,” he said. “It’s on a great corner. It’s got a great drive-through.”

And the Original 1930 NuWay at 1416 W. Douglas?

“Because West Douglas does not have a drive-through, it has struggled to regain customers since COVID hit,” Stong said.

“We’re going to work our tails off to make West Douglas as successful as it could be.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2023 at 11:29 AM.