— Wink Hartman Sr. on how some people wanting Intrust Bank Arena tickets are calling his Park City arena

Now, she’s going to own her own company.

Today, Pugh purchased the small wares division — which includes things like table ware, flatware and glasses — of Discount Restaurant Equipment.

“I just handed him the check at lunch,” Pugh says.

Discount Restaurant Equipment had a showroom that closed this summer, but Pugh felt it was necessary to keep one.

Her Debi’s Kitchen2Table will be at 6108 W. Central between I-235 and the Big Ditch.

Pugh says her biggest customer is Spangles, and she plans to continue to build relationships with commercial customers around the state.

“I think western Kansas is underserved,” she says.

But she also wants to attract nonrestaurant customers.

“Restaurant supply stores are always open to the public, but nobody really knows that,” Pugh says.

She wants to sell to “the weekend chef, the barbecue guy, the man who makes the chili,” in between selling to restaurants.

“I can’t do one without the other.”

But he didn’t like the prices.

“We couldn’t really justify building a Taj Mahal for our corporate headquarters when we could have just as nice (of a) facility downtown,” Foster says.

So now he’s moving his contract engineering firm to the Garvey Center.

“They made us the best proposal.”

And he likes that he’s going to be part of downtown’s revitalization.

“Downtown has some . . . potential,” Foster says. “If it’s handled right by our city . . . fathers, the movers and shakers, I think it could be vibrant down here again.”

He’s moving into close to 3,000 square feet by the end of the year.

Adam Clements of Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial Group handled the deal.

Foster says he thinks he’ll be part of a trend.

“We’ll see more people moving back downtown.”

She’ll be at a new location — the Dillons at 21st and Maize — and wants to be sure donors can find her.

To inspire potential givers to head her way, Cassidy offers this thought:
“Can of green beans: .75 cents. Bag of stuffing: .49 a pound. Beating Brett Harris in our annual turkey drive collection: Priceless!”

– Actress Kirstie Alley’s introduction of Roger Rees, who played her love interest on “Cheers,” before his Wednesday one-man show at WSU where he explored all things Shakespeare

“I was a bit faint in the wings.”

— Rees on how he felt about Alley’s introduction, in which she referred to him as “my sweet baby”

For several years, the former Wichitan and her husband — he’s retired and she’s mostly retired — have been living in South Dakota and North Carolina.

“We’re footloose and fancy free, and he wants to be even more footloose and fancy free,” Hoffmann says. “He’s been after me for a year and a half.”

Last week, she made the decision to close her shop, which originated as Decorator Fabric Warehouse in Delano.

Hoffmann says inventory is 40 percent off, but she’s taking her time closing the shop, which sells furniture, lighting, rugs and accessories.

“We’re just winding down,” Hoffmann says. She says there are several clients with very large homes that the store is in the midst of helping.

“We’re not going to leave them high and dry.”

Hoffmann is open to selling her store or subleasing its space. She has more than a year left on her lease, and if she has to leave the store empty, she will.

“We just reached a decision last week, and once I reach a decision I don’t look back. I just go forward.”

That doesn’t mean she won’t one day return to Wichita and open another shop.

“Who knows what I might come back and do some day.”

Just don’t tell her husband.

“I’m gutting . . . the lower level of the lobby floor and making all those offices,” says Chris Ruffin, director of real estate for his father Phil Ruffin’s Ruffin Properties.

Phil Ruffin owns the Bank of America Center.

Chris Ruffin says the 9,000 square feet on the lower level hasn’t been occupied for years.

“We’re redoing the whole space because it’s just not leasable the way it is,” he says. It “is going to be a great space when I’m done with it.”

He’s adding high-end lighting, new carpeting and building new walls.

“I need to brighten it up down there,” Ruffin says. “I need to make it presentable and move-in ready.”

On the main lobby level, he’s renovating 7,800 square feet that also has a street view.

“So it’s really neat,” Ruffin says, “but you can’t really tell because the space looks dark, and it’s outdated.”

It’s been vacant only a few months.

“Now I have my chance to improve the space,” Ruffin says.

This is kind of his specialty.

After his father bought the building in 2006, Ruffin says he had a challenge to bring new tenants to the sixth, seventh and eighth floors where Foulston Siefkin once was.

He says there were numerous small offices throughout the floors.

“We gutted the whole thing.”

Eventually Ruffin attracted Westar Energy, Cessna Finance and Weather Data thanks to the renovation.

“This is what I’ve had luck with (at) the Bank of America Center.”

Building owner Phil Ruffin approached club general manager Kathy Latham about a month ago to see if she might be interested in running food operations at his Ruffin Building at 9111 E. Douglas, which perhaps is better known as the former Pizza Hut headquarters.

For the last four years, Youssef Youssef has run Fattoush Deli there, but he’s now on only a month-to-month lease.

Latham decided it made sense for the Petroleum Club to venture east for an additional operation.

“It’s evolving, it seems like, just because of the success that we’ve had here,” she says of the downtown property.

Latham also runs the Walkway cafeteria at the Bank of America Center.
That’s open to the public.

The Petroleum Club is private, though Latham says nonmembers can use it for private events like wedding receptions and banquets.

“That’s really our forte,” she says.

Ruffin’s son, Chris, who is director of real estate for Ruffin Properties, says food service at the Ruffin Building is open to the public.

Mostly, though, he says, “It’s kind of an amenity for the building.”

There are 1,400 people who work in the 253,000-square-foot building.

Latham will take over the space at the first of the year. She has yet to pick a name for the operation, but we’ll let you know when she does.

“We’re really looking forward to it,” Ruffin says of Latham and the Petroleum Club taking over, “because they do such an excellent job at the Bank of America building.”

Latour Management is being evicted from the space, where it’s been since Antoine Toubia, the late founder of the company, moved there in 1987.

Latour is being evicted for what the landlord says is nonpayment of rent.

Latour president Joumana Toubia, Antoine’s sister, says she stopped paying because of maintenance issues.

Toubia is throwing a party for customers from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday.

“We’re inviting our patrons to come and celebrate our legacy,” she says.

For the Christmas season, Toubia is moving her operations to Piccadilly Market & Grill at Central and Rock (where she may or may not renew her lease in the new year).

Since she can’t hold sizable parties there, she’s also using other spaces around Wichita like the Broadview Hotel and the Hotel at Old Town’s banquet facility.

Then, she’ll consider what’s next.

“Of course, I hope to reopen in one fashion or another,” Toubia says. “I don’t want to rush into anything.”

She says there are all kinds of opportunities for new ventures now.

“It would be wrong not to consider all of them.”

Still, Toubia is sad to leave what’s been her company’s home for so long.

“It’s hard.”

— A tweet on Twitter from Envision’s Michael Epp (@michalepp) in reply to a tweet about the Intrust Bank concert calls