The dance was illegal at Wichita's new Texas Roadhouse, but now it's not

For the past week and a half, the servers at the new Texas Roadhouse in east Wichita have been putting down their plates once an hour and kicking up country line dances in the aisles for the restaurant's customers.

And for the past week and a half, that's been illegal dancing, per Wichita city code.

No kidding.

A quirky provision of the city's planning and zoning code requires a special permit for any establishment that serves alcohol and allows dancing of any sort.

"The way the code is set up, Kansas has had an interesting relationship with alcohol," said Dale Miller, planning director. "If you serve alcohol, or allow the service of alcohol, whether you're serving it, or a caterer, or people bring it in . . . and you allow people to dance, or you have employees dancing, that by definition is a 'nightclub in the city.'"

The Texas Roadhouse at 2526 North Greenwich opened Feb. 26 and the wait staff has been dancing ever since. But the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission didn't approve the restaurant's nightclub permit until Thursday afternoon.

Country dancing is an integral part of the Texas Roadhouse experience.

"We line dance every hour on the half hour," restaurant owner Mike Parratino said. "It's just something fun for the guests. It's just part of what we do at Texas Roadhouse, have some fun and keep the energy up and guests love it. We pull kids out and they come out and dance and things like that."

Line dancing has been going on at the west Wichita Texas Roadhouse for years, with the required permit, Miller said.

Parratino said he thought the new restaurant was in compliance with the city's dance regulations when it opened.

He said he was told that all he had to do was post a sign for a couple of weeks, just in case anybody wanted to object to dancing in the restaurant.

"We put our little permit out and we had it out there for a while like the city asked, " he said. "And then we were able to take the sign down and run business as usual."

Miller confirmed that any dancing that happened at the new Texas Roadhouse before Thursday afternoon was technically illegal.

Thursday's commission vote — unopposed and unanimous — puts an end to the rhythmic lawbreaking.

And the wait staff can relax. Nobody going from line dancing to a police lineup.

Miller said enforcement is "on a complaint basis."

Since nobody complained about the dancing — at least not to the planning staff anyway — no corrective action is being contemplated, he said.

This story was originally published March 8, 2018 at 11:31 PM with the headline "The dance was illegal at Wichita's new Texas Roadhouse, but now it's not."