Owners of favorite downtown Wichita restaurant are ready to open their giant new location

The Kitchen owner Natasha Gandhi-Rue isn’t accustomed to having so much space around her. And neither is her Apple watch.

By 1 p.m. each day that she’s in her new restaurant — which has taken over the former Rail Hoppers space at 3622 N. Oliver — she’s already met her step goal for the day.

“It’s huge,” she says of her new restaurant, which has more than 5,000 square feet. “There’s no nice way of putting it.”

Now Gandhi-Rue and her husband, Scott Rue, are ready to invite their customers into their second Wichita restaurant, which — like their first, which opened in 2010 at 725 E. Douglas — is called The Kitchen. It officially opens on Wednesday.

The couple has been putting on soft openings for about a week, quietly serving people in-the-know so that their new staff can get some experience before the doors are thrown open. But now, they’re ready to get going in earnest. For now, the restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

Diners will find nearly the same menu — featuring salads, soups, flatbreads, burgers and entrees like Steak Diane, Cajun pasta, and chicken and waffles — that Gandhi-Rue serves at her current restaurant, which will also remain open.

For now, the new restaurant will omit a few items people may have gotten used to ordering downtown. Gandhi-Rue said she wants to simplify the menu a bit as her new staff gains experience, then she’ll slowly add the rest of the entrees.

The big new location, Gandhi-Rue said, will allow her to do things she’s long wanted to try downtown but just didn’t have the space for, like hands-on cooking classes, which will likely start over the summer. Her catering business also has been growing over the years, but she lacked the space downtown to grow it any more. At the new restaurant, which has two separate kitchens, she can increase catering business and even put on private events in her new 32-person private dining room.

The new restaurant, which also has a large outdoor patio, will also allow Gandhi-Rue to start serving a weekend brunch. It likely won’t start until this summer, and Gandhi-Rue hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll serve a brunch buffet or plated items.

Gandhi-Rue announced in February her plans to expand her business into the building formerly occupied by The Anchor owner Schane Gross’ short-lived Rail Hoppers, which opened in March 2023 and closed last month. Gandhi-Rue said she wasn’t looking to open another restaurant when she was approached by Great Plains Ventures — the owner of District 96. The growing development at K-96 and Oliver is also home to Aloft Hotel and a new Scooter’s and is also about to get a big pickleball complex called Taps N Paddles.

She was intrigued by the idea of the new space.

Now as she looks at it, she’s excited if not a bit overwhelmed.

“There is a certain amount of, ‘Oh my god. How do we make this work for us and how do we make it efficient?” she said. “But we did it.”

Gandhi-Rue, a graduate of New York City’s French Culinary Institute (now called the International Culinary Center) and a former culinary manager for Williams-Sonoma, has seen her profile in Wichita rise over the last few years. She’s appeared on the Food Network show “Guy’s Grocery Games” three different times since 2020, and she actively advocates for other locally owned small businesses.