Strouds’s Restaurant, damaged by a kitchen fire in July, is set to reopen on Thursday.
Previous story – September 2, 2014:
The taste of fried chicken will soon make a big return to northeast Wichita.
A construction crew is about to wrap-up its work inside Stroud’s Restaurant and Bar. A kitchen fire shut down the facility in July.
“That evening, it looked pretty bad, but we got in the next morning, it was confined to a very small area in the kitchen,” said Kevin Allis, the general manager of the restaurant. “We had smoke damage throughout and so all the fire-resistant paneling in the kitchen had to be replaced. I didn’t see that the next day.”
He said construction will likely finish on Sept. 10, and Stroud’s will reopen on Sept. 17.
“Every day, we have guests coming up, knocking on the door, [and we’re] saying “a few more weeks, a few more weeks’,” he said.
Allis said the time between the end of construction and the reopen will be important. He said all of his staff members are returning. However, since they’ll be using new equipment, he wants to prepare for any changes they’ll have to make to be ready for the opening — especially making Stroud’s classic fried chicken.
“The support from our customers has been tremendous. It just makes me want to get open that much quicker. We really want to get to frying chicken again,” Allis said.