Ten years ago, Public’s owners moved back home and helped launch a local food movement

One of Wichita’s most popular Old Town restaurants wouldn’t exist if not for a January 1990 fire that gutted a three-story historic brick building at 129 N. Rock Island, leaving it nothing but a roofless shell.

But 22 years later, that dramatic fire — later determined to have been caused by a faulty elevator motor — indirectly helped Wichita gain a stylish gastropub run by a visionary trio of young people determined to build a restaurant that would serve a menu made with locally sourced food — an idea that hadn’t quite arrived in Wichita at the time.

This weekend, Public at the Brickyard and its owners Travis and Brooke Russell will celebrate the 10 year anniversary of their restaurant’s opening day with a big block party that will highlight the local farmers and vendors who worked with them along the way. Saturday’s party will culminate with a concert by Brickyard favorite band Monterrey Jack.

As they prepare for the milestone, the Russells — who in the last year bought out founding partner Drew Thompson — are looking back at a decade that took them from “naive” restaurant novices to seasoned business owners who helped build a local food movement and become go-to members of the local culinary community along the way.

They say the success of their restaurant happened because of pure determination and a few lucky breaks that helped them earn national media attention and build a devoted local following that not even a global pandemic could take away.

So what’s helped Public survive for a decade? Travis Russell can think of a few things, including the fact that he and his wife committed to being owner/operators who were present in their business, who built relationships and listened to their customers and to the community.

“Honestly, it’s a little bit of timing and luck,” he said. “And like a lot of things in life, it’s been our sheer will to push hard and turn over rocks and not take things for granted.”

Coming home

The pre-dawn fire that broke out in Old Town back in January 1990 destroyed a building that was owned by a City Council member and was being used as for-lease storage space for 40 tenants. When the fire was finally extinguished, the fire marshal reported that all three floors had collapsed and that all that was left of the building was its outer brick walls.

It would likely have to be knocked down, he said.

Eventually, though, some local entrepreneurs had another idea. Mark and Joni Russell, who since 1992 had run their Old Town antique shop and mercantile Mrs. O’Leary’s next door at 125 N. Rock Island, leased the burned-out shell of a building and took their college-age son Travis’ suggestion to turn it into an open-air music venue. They paved the gravel floor of the space and opened The Brickyard in 1999.

Travis, an artist, left to study printmaking at the University of Kansas at the same time his parents opened the new bar, but he would come home to help every summer and spring break. Mark used an adjoining space for a little buffet restaurant that served lunch for three or four years, but there wasn’t enough traffic in Old Town at the time to sustain his restaurant. He kept running The Brickyard seasonally but turned the restaurant space into a catering hall that serviced the outdoor space.

The day after he graduated from KU, Travis was trained as a server by a fellow KU graduate also working at the Lawrence restaurant Pachamamas, a no-longer-operating establishment that was an early farm-to-table adopter. Brooke had been a broadcast journalism major, and the couple eventually moved together to St. Louis, where they would marry. A Winfield native, Brooke worked as a morning show producer at the St. Louis CBS affiliate, and Travis earned his master’s degree in printmaking at Washington University while also working as an adjunct professor.

While in St. Louis, Travis also worked in several restaurants, including Cafe Osage, a farm-to-table brunch restaurant that grew much of its own produce. He worked there as a server but eventually got into the kitchen, and then-chef/owner David Kirkland became one of Travis’ culinary heroes.

After the 2008 recession, though, the couple started thinking about returning home. Jobs in Travis’ field were scarce, and the couple was thinking about starting a family. Travis and his buddy from North High School, Drew Thompson — who was living in Seattle — had dreamed of collaborating on a farm-to-table concept, and all three agreed they would move back home and give it a shot in the restaurant space attached to the Brickyard, which at that point Mark and Joni Russell were mostly using for storage.

“It really seemed for me that the writing was on the wall,” Travis said. “If we were going to do something, this was an opportunity to take a risk and take a chance. And it wasn’t that much of a risk because we were moving home, where we had family to support us.”

Travis and Drew moved back first, arriving in late July 2012, and they had the restaurant open by the first week of October. Brooke gave up her TV job in St. Louis and followed eight months later, and all three partners lived in an apartment above the restaurant while they launched the business.

They remodeled the dark, underground space, adding a cozy, glowing bar and hand-made the tables using old flooring from the defunct Lemp Brewery in St. Louis. They decorated the walls with tasteful, funky antiques Joni Russell had collected. Drew put together Public’s beer program and ran the financial side of the business. Travis was in the kitchen. Brooke ran the front of the house.

In retrospect, though, that was the easy part, the Russells said. Opening their dream restaurant turned out to be trickier than they thought it would be. The trio didn’t realize how difficult sourcing local ingredients would be in Wichita. In 2012, the movement was new, and finding farmers who could supply restaurants was next to impossible. Travis said he wrote the initial menu before arriving in Wichita and he quickly started realizing that “the sourcing of the ingredients did not match up to my vision.”

They also learned quickly that their small kitchen couldn’t really keep up with their sprawling 130-seat dining room, so they had to design their menu to make it work.

“When I think back on opening the restaurant, we were very naive and didn’t know what we were doing, which is why we were so ambitious about it in terms of trying to source everything local,” Brooke said. “It’s a very large space for the size of the kitchen, and there are many things about the concept that now as a wiser restaurant owner, I understand why it’s so especially challenging. But we didn’t know what we didn’t know, so we trudged forward and made it work.”

The next decade

Public at the Brickyard took off quickly. Customers loved the hidden-away feel of the place, and dishes like sliders, brisket tacos, Buffalo cauliflower and homemade pickle boards were instant hits. The Brickyard had its own loyal following, and its success helped draw customers next door to the new restaurant.

Before long, Public started earning national media attention. Food Network star Alton Brown made the restaurant one of his regular stops when he was in town performing and would gush about it on his blog. In early 2020, the restaurant was featured along with Doo-Dah Diner on a Cooking Channel show called “Burgers, Brew & ‘Que.”

Brooke — who Travis calls “the heart and soul behind Public” — would almost always say yes to fundraising gigs, cooking competitions and food festivals around town, and Public became a regular and dependable presence on the local food scene. Its profile continued to grow.

For years, Travis’ parents, Mark and Joni, remained the overseers of The Brickyard, while the younger generation was in charge of Public. Though the two businesses cooperated, they were separate, which would sometimes cause confusion. In 2019, though, the Russell parents stepped back from The Brickyard, and Travis and Brooke now operate it, too. Though Mark and Joni still weigh in on big decisions regarding the business, Travis and Brooke combined the staff of the two businesses, merged their brands and took over bookings for the popular outdoor venue attached to the restaurant. They also expanded dining onto the Brickyard patio, which offered new challenges for the tiny kitchen.

In 2020 — like nearly all restaurants — Public’s owners faced their toughest challenge yet when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Suddenly, downtown Wichita was empty. The nightlife crowds were gone, and so was lunch business. Public’s owners constantly were executing the COVID “pivot,” and at first sold favorite menu items and even grocery supplies online. They offered family-style meals to go and later started selling frozen homemade pizzas to go. Public ceased its lunch service during COVID and only recently added it back.

“COVID just kind of smacks you and puts you in a position where you have to stop and think, ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ and not just ‘What are we projecting quarterly for our business?’” Travis said. “We tried to be resourceful and figure out ways we could extend Public.’”

Ten years into the business, there’s even more pressure on the Russells. In addition to buying out their founding partner, the couple is now parents of two young sons, ages 1 and 5. Running the business and raising a family has provided special challenges, which both say were eased when they hired longtime friend and chef Josh Rathbun in March. Rathbun, also a champion of the local food movement, has taken over running the kitchen as executive chef, which has allowed Travis more flexibility.

The Russells also have shifted their focus from making their restaurant work to making the Old Town district work. In the last decade, it’s moved away from being a nightclub district, Brooke said, and it needs new ideas to keep it alive. Public has been trying lots of new things, including opening the venue up for big events and food festivals like the Orie’s Garlic Fest, which happened in September, and they want to continue on that path.

“There’s been a lot of changes downtown, and there’s a lot of money going into Delano now,” Brooke said. “My focus and thoughts have kind of shifted to, ‘How can we make sure Old Town brings new things to the table like other districts are doing?’”

These days, the Russells also are looking forward to the next decade. They’re philosophical about how life is changing for the restaurant industry post-COVID, and they have ideas (which they’re not ready to share just yet) about how they can expand their brand without opening another 130-seat restaurant.

Travis Russell says his goal is to continue the businesses and to eventually — like his parents did — hand them over to the next generation.

“It’s been a pretty sobering journey,” he said. “We’re very grateful to have been able to make it through a global pandemic. The biggest thing for us now is evolving the next generation of what Public and The Brickyard become. We have hopes and ambitions to stay in the industry and see what that means as far as other opportunities, and we really have hopes to transition this into the next generation.”

Public at the Brickyard’s Tenth Anniversary Street Party

When: Starts at 4 p.m. Saturday

Where: Public at The Brickyard, 129 N. Rock Island, and Rock Island Street, which will be shut down for the event.

What: Local farmers and vendors who helped Public launch a decade ago will have booths set up around Public and will be selling their wares starting at 4 p.m. Food trucks will be serving, and a special stage erected in the alleyway north of Public will feature music by the Josue Estrada Band and Whitnie Means. Admission is free from 4 to 8 p.m.

At 8 p.m., Brickyard regulars Monterey Jack will headline an after party. Admission for that show is $10.