Wichita military veterans turned restaurant owners say service prepared them well

Every year, Americans take time out to observe Veterans Day — and to remember members of the military who served to defend the country.

And every year, one of the ways business owners — particularly restaurant owners — find to say thank you to veterans is by offering free or discounted meals. In Wichita, just like in the rest of the country, the list of both local and chain restaurants that offer deals every Nov. 11 is always long. (You can find this year’s list now on the Dining with Denise Facebook page.)

But several of those Wichita restaurants also are owned by people who served in the armed forces — and many of them say they developed the discipline and attention to detail needed to run a restaurant while in the military.

In honor of Veterans Day, here are profiles of some Wichita veterans who also run some of Wichita’s favorite restaurants and food trucks.

Coffee for a cause

One of Wichita’s most veteran-focused businesses is owned by a veteran and his wife who, when he suffered from PTSD after serving in the Air Force during the Iraq War, decided they wanted to do something to help other veterans in his situation.

Larry and Ashley King are the owners of Sojourner’s Coffee House, a donation-based coffee shop that’s run as a 501(c)(3). It opened at 7130 W. Maple in April of last year.

The shop sells espresso drinks, drip coffee, frozen coffee drinks, smoothies and breakfast items like cinnamon rolls, avocado toast and breakfast sandwiches. But the menu doesn’t list prices: Instead, visitors are asked to decide how much they’d like to give to cover the cost of the food and help veterans struggling in the community. The Kings count both veterans and regular Wichitans among their clients.

But the main point of Sojourner’s, the Kings said, is to offer veterans a place where they can meet up, share stories, find support and locate resources. Not only does the shop have a large meeting room set aside specifically for veteran meetups, but it also offers a weekly military hours, a resiliency group, Bible study for veterans, a spouse’s group and every-other-month military appreciation dinners.

“It’s about being with your brothers,” said Larry King, a North Carolina native who enlisted in the Air Force in 2003 and moved to Wichita in 2008 to work as a boom operator at McConnell Air Force Base. “It’s about surrounding yourself with people that have walked the path and that are currently walking the path and to be able to bounce things off of them and say, ‘Hey, here’s what I’m going through. This is what I feel like.’ And for them to say, ’Yeah,’ and validate it.”

The couple came up with the idea for Sojourners after visiting a similar shop in Germany. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Larry — who was medically discharged from the Air Force in 2012 — was laid off for a second time, and the two started talking about starting their own veteran-focused shop.

Ashley King, whose Vietnam veteran grandfather also suffered from PTSD, said that Larry’s bubbled up after they had their first child. She wishes now that they’d both been surrounded by people who knew what that was like.

“Seeing both of them in my life made me want to do something to help them,” she said. “We wanted to create a space where veterans could come and have a safe place and get together and communicate and build community and share with each other and to give them someone to call when they’re struggling at 2 a.m. to let them know that they’re not alone.”

Sojourner’s is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.

Prepared for the chaos

In Wichita, Robert and Daina Elliott are best known for the eye-catching smoothies they serve in hollowed-out pineapples from their food truck, Bongo Fruit Smoothies, which they opened in 2019.

But the husband-and-wife duo are also veterans: Both joined the Air Force in 1995, and they actually met at the Military Entrance Processing Station in North Carolina the day they enlisted. They then were on the same plane on the way to basic training and on the same bus to technical school when training was over. They married three months after they met.

Daina, who spent 22 years in the military, worked finance for more than 20 years and did a three-year stint in munitions. Robert served for 26 years in refueling. They’re now 27 years into their marriage and have moved together eight different times for postings. The Elliotts have lived in Turkey, Texas, Germany, North Carolina and Wichita, where they settled. Robert, 48, who retired as a senior master sergeant, was deployed in Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Africa and Kuwait. Daina, 45, was deployed in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan, and she retired as a master sergeant.

The couple now has four children, including two in the military. They also have two grandchildren.

Their business is booming, and their truck is so successful that they’re able to support it and themselves working only 68 days a year. During that time, they go through 10,000 pineapples and 15,000 cups.

The two say their time in the service prepared them for the fast-paced, sometimes chaotic world of food trucking.

“I think that we’re one of the most productive trucks when it comes to how fast we can get an order out and just the discipline we have,” Robert said.

Daina agreed, saying that she picked up skills during her time in the Air Force that now help her juggle many duties.

“There’s no better place to get that leadership experience than in the military,” she said. “It helps when we have to make our own plans, pick up supplies and lay out how everything is going to run efficiently.”

Over the summer of 2022, the duo added a new drink to their menu — one served in a hollowed out watermelon. It caused just as big of a stir as the pineapple drinks did. Now, they’re planning to launch a second truck, which will be run by their youngest son, Joseph. It will debut in 2023.

Still giving back

School was really never Kelly Ake’s thing: She was there only to play sports, she now admits.

When she graduated from Halstead High School, she knew that college was not in her future. Instead, she decided to join the military. She left the day after high school graduation — at age 17 — for basic training.

Today, Ake owns Ken N Barbie’z Rolling Diner with her partner, Barbie Taber. It’s one of the busiest trucks in town and often can be found serving sandwiches, burgers and more at events and festivals all over the state.

Ake, who was enlisted from 1995 to 2003, was a medic who was attached to a field artillery unit in Wichita. She was in both the Army Reserve and in the National Guard. After her eight years were up, she worked with juvenile offenders, had a job with the Salvation Army, even worked as a store manager at Aldi. After her last job as a loss prevention manager at Lowe’s was eliminated, she and Taber decided to try the food truck life. They opened their brightly colored rig in 2017.

Her military background has served her well on the truck, Ake said.

“It serves me every day in my personal life, too,” she said. “Especially the discipline and the organization. I probably got a little bit of OCD for things being in place because of the military.”

Ake looks back fondly at her time in the military, she said, and some days wishes she’d stuck with it until retirement. The service also instilled in her the desire to help people, something she and Taber try to do as often as possible with their truck. They’re known to set up and feed the local homeless population, and a few years ago on Sept. 11 they fed firefighters for free at a local fire house.

“Another thing the military gives you is a sense of giving back,” she said. “You don’t join the military for yourself, per se. You’re doing it because you want to give back.”

Other veterans who own restaurants in Wichita

Austin English, Prost, 2721 E. Central: English, who owns Prost with his German-born wife, Manu, was in the Air Force from 1982 through 1987. He met Manu while stationed in Germany. English, a sergeant in the Air Force, also worked as a contractor for the Department of Defense for two years. Although his military service is a part of his past, English said, he’s proud of the time he gave to the country. “I’ll never give that up,” he said. “I think it gives me the right, too, because I served to say what I think we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong as a nation.”

Robert McMullin, Piatto Neapolitan Pizzeria, 1706 E. Douglas: The owner of Piatto served in the Air Force from September 2002 until September 2006. He enlisted right after high school, hoping the military would give him the opportunity to travel. But he traveled straight to Wichita, where he was stationed. His job was performing isochronal inspections on aircraft. “It makes you work with people that you probably otherwise never would have met, people from all over the world,” he said.

Scott Rue, The Kitchen, 725 E. Douglas: Rue, whose wife, Natasha Gandhi-Rue, is the chef at the restaurant the couple co-owns, is a former marine (and a skilled cake baker).

Dave Thompson, Tutors Pizza, 524 S. Seneca and 3817 W. 13th St.: Thompson served in the Army for 12 years before being medically discharged, then went on to open his first restaurant in Salina.

Mark Daniels, Wichita Cheesecake Company, 801 E. Douglas: Daniels served in the U.S. Army from 1981 to 1991 and served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

In memory of Troy Evans, The Bomb BBQ food truck: Evens, who died suddenly in March at age 51, was a bomb builder in the 184th Intelligence Wing of the Kansas Air National Guard at McConnell Air Force Base who opened his barbecue food truck after he retired. Evans used his truck to support a nonprofit veterans homeless shelter called Passageways, and since he first opened, he would donate 10% of the proceeds from every food truck job. He also frequently donated food to veterans organizations. Evans’ family and employees have kept the truck running since his death.