This ends week three of my new blog. Hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. Something tells me it’s not tiring you out as much as it is me, though. (If this were an e-mail, I’d insert one of those silly smiley faces here.)
I’ll be on vacation for the next week. If you have any tips, please e-mail me at crengers@wichitaeagle.com, and I’ll check into them upon my return.
Thanks!
Carrie
Ultimate Sports Shop is moving from West Central near Maize Road to the Westway Shopping Center at Pawnee and Seneca.
“We are going to try to buck the trend,” says Tim Freund, who owns the business with his wife, Diana.
He likes the new location since it’s near Harbor Freight, and he thinks he’ll share a lot of the same customers with that store.
“We think that we will be a good fit,” Freund says.
The store will be open seven days a week.
Saturday is Ultimate’s last day in its current location.
The Christian Science Reading Room is now in Delano at 702 W. Douglas next to Pizza Hut.
The bookstore, which is affiliated with Second Church of Christ, Scientist, used to have locations in the Petroleum Building downtown and on East Central near Papa John’s.
“We’ve moved from one pizza place to the next,” says Ann Garvey, a volunteer for the store.
“It is kind of like putting both of our other reading rooms together,” says Garvey’s sister Julie Sheppard, the staff librarian.
The new space is 1,600 square feet.
“We wanted to find a place that had more pedestrian activity, that was more central, that was more easily accessible,” Garvey says. “We’re delighted to be in Delano.”
Sheppard likes it because it’s a neighborhood, and it has great foot traffic.
“It’s really fun,” she says.
I’ve enjoyed all three of the new Mongolian Grills in town — HuHot, Genghis Grill and Wichita’s own Gobi Grille. In fact, sometimes I wish I could take my favorite things from all three restaurants and roll them into one.
The most unexpected thing I like is the soundtrack playing at Genghis Grill. I think it has to be the best of any restaurant in the city.
At lunch today, one minute I was dancing in my seat to the Gap Band’s “You Dropped A Bomb on Me,” and the next I was feeling nostalgic with Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer.”
An odd mix, to be sure, but I loved it.
Barbara and Forrest Jensen are upset about closing their Rose Bowl West, which Forrest’s father, Woody, opened in May 1959.
“We lost our 50-year lease,” Barbara Jensen says. “We’re pretty bitter about it right now.”
The Jensens, who have owned the business at 520 N. West St. since 1981, tried to buy the building 15 years ago. It’s owned by three trusts.
“They weren’t interested at the time,” Jensen says. “Now that it needs work done to it, they don’t want to put any money into it.”
But the owners are interested in selling now.
“We just can’t swing a deal,” Jensen says.
“It’s hard to explain,” she says of how she feels right now. “How would you feel working your butt off for years, and they don’t want to deal with you?”
“We’re not going to give our rooms away, and I wish they would stop giving their rooms away.”
– Wichitan and Treasure Island owner Phil Ruffin, quoted in a Las Vegas Sun article this week, on how his competitors are practically giving away their hotel rooms to attract guests in this tough economic climate
After 50 years in business, the Rose Bowl West at 520 N. West St. is closing.
The Jensen family opened the business in May 1959. It looks like the business is closing because of a lease situation. The family owned the business but not the building.
There will be a May 30 auction of the Rose Bowl’s contents.
Check here later today for more information.