Have You Heard?

WICHITA — Brooklyn’s Chophouse & Brew Tavern has been closed for less than two months, and owner David Chaffin has filed bankruptcy, but he’s already opening a new business.

“You know how it looks on the surface,” says Chaffin, who understands that people naturally will have questions.

“Basically, I was all but getting ready to leave town,” he says of searching for a new job.

Then he says he was approached by a group of investors and the landlord for Clear Lakes, the center on 21st Street near Amidon where Jimmy’s Egg was most recently.

Chaffin says they want him to open a new restaurant where Jimmy’s was.

“I don’t have anything to bring to the table but me,” Chaffin says he told them.

That was OK.

He’s now working to open Shoeless Joe’s Old Fashioned Burgers and Phillys, a lunch and dinner restaurant with a full bar that will be open seven days a week.

“Basically it will be a version of what Players was years ago,” he says. “You know, going back to the small, simple and fun.”

Players Sports Bar & Grill is the bar Chaffin opened in 1984 near 21st and West streets. He then built a larger building at 6200 W. 21st St. and moved in 1999.

Chaffin changed the concept to Brooklyn’s last year after the business suffered in the down economy.

“The problem we had in the other building was it was way too big for this economy.”

Chaffin says he’s content to be “a glorified employee for a while.”

“They’re putting up the money, and I work,” he says. “One day I will own the place again.”

Chaffin says he looks at Shoeless Joe’s as going back to his roots in a 4,000 square-foot space.

“It looks like sometime mid-November we’ll have that bad boy opened up.”