After 37 years of serving the downtown area, the Popeyes restaurant at 1211 N. Broadway is closing, effective Sunday, Dec. 31.
“We tried to keep it alive,” said Darren McGilbray, president of Popeyes. “It was a pillar of that neighborhood and it was the second Popeyes in Wichita when it opened on November 10, 1986. But it has been struggling in the last several years.”
The other four locations in Wichita are open, thriving and seeing better sales than ever.
McGilbray takes pride in the support Popeyes offers to the community, to its team members and to education
“When you have one location that isn’t making it, you are faced with the choice of putting money from thriving locations into keeping it going or with closing it. I hate to see money that could be going to good causes in the community being diverted to keep it going,” he said.
There’s good news, too.
“Nobody will lose their job because of the closing,” he said. “All employees will be able to move to another location and early in 2024, Popeyes will open in a new location at 21st and Amidon.”
That store is in an old Hardees location. All of the Hardees locations in Wichita abruptly closed in April 2023.
Wichita’s Popeyes locations are part of ARJH which is owned by Abdul Hamideh. He has plans to grow the brand across Kansas and Oklahoma. Hamideh also owns and operates IHOP restaurants across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kansas and Missouri.
McGilbray is corporate President of all the Popeyes Stores in ARJH.
