Lord’s Diner to start food truck service in NE Wichita

Nearly a decade after efforts to open a satellite location in northeast Wichita failed, the Lord’s Diner will begin offering free hot meals there from a food truck.

The truck will operate on weekdays at the Atwater Neighborhood Resource Center, 2755 E. 19th St., beginning on Oct. 24, said Jan Haberly, executive director of the Lord’s Diner.

The Lord’s Diner has been offering free daily meals to anyone who wants one since opening downtown in 2002. This will be the third food truck operated by the diner. The other two serve the Hilltop neighborhood in south Wichita and the Evergreen neighborhood on the north side.

Along with the original location downtown, the Lord’s Diner opened a satellite location at 2825 S. Hillside, next to Planeview, in 2011 and will open another diner in Pittsburg in southeast Kansas by the end of the year.

“We’ve been wanting to go to the northeast (part of Wichita) for quite a while now,” Haberly said.

A proposal to convert the former Boys and Girls Club building at 21st and Grove into a second diner in 2009 was dropped in the face of strenuous opposition. The Greater Wichita Ministerial League refused to support the proposal, citing concerns that it would increase crime and not mesh with redevelopment efforts along 21st Street.

The ministerial league has thrown its support behind the Lord’s Diner food truck coming to Atwater.

“We believe that this will be a benefit to the community,” said Roosevelt DeShazer Sr., pastor of Progressive Missionary Baptist Church and president of the ministerial league. “The Atwater Neighborhood Center is already a valuable resource to the community. I believe this just adds to it.”

Because the center is a hub for the area, DeShazer said, it will be natural for residents to gravitate there to pick up meals from the food truck.

Lord’s Diner administrative staff members conducted a volunteer recruitment session on Saturday at Atwater to sign up volunteers to staff the food truck when it’s serving meals.

Atwater is in a ZIP code that is among the 10 poorest in the nation, Haberly said, so the need for what the diner offers is substantial.

“There’s a comfort level of taking the meals home for your family, rather than the stigma of the food kitchen,” Haberly said.

Each person who receives food from the truck can take as many as two meals, she said, allowing people to take food home to other family members.

Experience has taught diner staff members that the diner’s food trucks fostered something unexpected when they first came into use: a stronger bond among residents of the surrounding neighborhood.

“They look out for each other” when they’re waiting to get their food, Haberly said. “There’s just a real community feeling at the trucks.”

Diner officials began considering using food trucks several years ago after learning how they were being used in Texas, she said. But those trucks provided a cold sack lunch to the homeless.

Wichita officials wanted to stay true to the mission of the Lord’s Diner, she said: a hot, nutritious meal served with dignity and respect.

Diner officials had the Atwater food truck in mind when they expanded the kitchen and storage space at the downtown facility in 2013, adding a loading bay for the trucks.

The Evergreen food truck serves an average of 500 to 600 people a night, while Hilltop quickly grew to 1,000 or more after the service started in 2014. Hilltop still reaches four figures in meals at times, Haberly said.

Diner officials expect Atwater’s numbers to mirror Hilltop’s, she said.

“I believe it’s going to be a very valuable resource,” DeShazer said.

This story was originally published September 18, 2016 at 7:31 PM with the headline "Lord’s Diner to start food truck service in NE Wichita."