WICHITA — Players Sports Bar & Grill owner David Chaffin is now ready to talk about his plans to convert to Brooklyn Chophouse and Brew Tavern.
Have You Heard? broke the news about Chaffin’s plans for his West 21st Street business last week, but he wasn’t yet ready to discuss them.
“It’s been on the back burner for five years,” Chaffin says of the changes.
The main change is a menu upgrade, and Chaffin says that necessitates a name change.
“If I do that, and I called it Players, it’s a tough sell,” he says. “It really is.”
Now, almost all the meat he’ll serve will be choice grade, and he’s eliminating what he calls junk food — such as a plate of fried appetizers — from the menu.
“It’s not that we were ashamed of Players food,” Chaffin says. “But we had food that reflected Players Bar and Grill.”
He adds, though, “Anything that’s great about Players we’re keeping.”
He chose the Brooklyn name because he was going for a New York feel, with what he calls New York kind of steaks and deli sandwiches.
“Bronx didn’t sound right,” Chaffin says.
Brooklyn also evokes something nostalgic for Chaffin. So he’s pulling down all his beer banners outside and putting up reproduction billboards from the turn of the century through the 1950s to advertise things like Pepsi and Budweiser.
The billboards will go up in the next few weeks. The name change happens July 1st.
Chaffin says in preparation for the change, he’ll no longer serve his regular steaks after Wednesday. This Sunday, he’ll offer a sneak preview of some of his new menu items, but then they won’t be available again until July.
Chaffin says he doesn’t plan much remodeling, at least for now, and he’s keeping his $300,000 worth of sports memorabilia.
“It gives me great pride when people come and look at my memorabilia,” he says.
Chaffin already is reassuring customers who have heard about the changes and are concerned.
“Any time you change something, they’re always going to think the worst.”