Two Wichita hotels are about to bring two new dining options to Wichita.
One is the about-to-open, airport-adjacent Hilton Garden Inn/Homewood Suites hotel at 1523 S. Ridge Road, which will include a national chain restaurant chain. The other is the Wichita Marriott at 9100 E. Corporate Hills Drive, which is turning a restaurant space that's been vacant since the COVID-19 pandemic into a cocktail lounge serving small plates.
Both will be open to the public.
Bar Louie opening at airport Hilton
The new hotel by Wichita's Eisenhower Airport - which will be a co-branded Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites by Hilton - is almost complete and should open sometime in September. Its restaurant will be a location of Bar Louie, a Texas-based chain that has around 43 locations across the country. The restaurant is expected to open shortly before the hotel is ready.
Bar Louie was founded in 1990. The chain declared bankruptcy in 2020 and again in March of this year, when it closed more than a dozen underperforming restaurants.
Its menu features burgers, sandwiches, flatbreads and salads plus entrees including steak frites, citrus grilled salmon, fish and chips, and chicken tenders. It also has a menu of bar bites that includes pretzels with cheese, chicken nachos, fried cheese curds, and black bean hummus.
The hotel will also have an indoor pool, a fitness center and more than 6,000 square feet of meeting space. Each brand will have 80 rooms. Hilton Garden Inn will operate along the north and west sides of the building, and Homewood Suites rooms will be along the east and south sides. Hotel reservations should open up later this month.
Craft cocktails and small plates
Meanwhile, the Marriott near Kellogg and Webb is about to give new life to its old restaurant space.
The hotel, which just underwent a $2 million first-floor renovation, is turning the small dining space previously occupied by Fireside Grille into a new cocktail lounge it will call Room 9100. (The 9100 is an ode to the hotel's address, 9100 E. Corporate Hills Drive.)
The bar should be open in a couple of weeks, said Kate Rose, director of food and beverage for the hotel. It will feature its own menu of craft cocktails, service from a full bar and small plates created by new head chef Ben George. Among the items George has created for the menu: salmon lettuce wraps, a steak grazing board, and a unique take on chicken and waffles.
Fireside Grille opened in a space beyond the hotel's lobby restaurant, called Greatroom Restaurant and Bar, in 2017, but when the hotel shut down during the 2020 pandemic, Fireside Grille did too, and it never reopened. The hotel had been using the space for private events.
When the remodel started, Rose said, the hotel decided to do something new with the space. It came up with the new cocktail lounge concept and gave the space a makeover, adding new furnishings and dim lighting. Room 9100 will have seating for around 30.
To start, Room 9100 will be open from 4 to 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays only. Rose said the hotel will expand the lounge's hours as it gets busier.
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