WICHITA — After much soul searching, John Whitmer has decided not to buy Mort’s Martini and Cigar Bar, which his late brother, Frank, owned.
Frank Whitmer, who died last month, left the popular Old Town bar to his mother.
“The number one thing was, if my mother was going to sell it, the most important thing was to make sure she got the most bang for the buck,” John Whitmer says. “She’s not going to sell it to me just because.”
He wanted to make sure if he bought it, he was buying it for the right reason.
“I really was struggling with the concept,” says Whitmer, who is general manager of Hartmoor Concessions at Hartman Arena.
“Am I really doing this because of trying to maintain a connection with my brother . . . or is this really what I want to do?”
He decided against it and is happy that his brother’s close friends Morrie and Matt Sheets have purchased it instead.
“They’ll do a fantastic job,” Whitmer says. “Better than I.”
Morrie Sheets was the original owner of Mort’s and later sold it to Frank Whitmer.
John Whitmer says it was important to his family to sell the bar to the right person to carry it on as Mort’s.
He says the question was, “Who do we sell it to that isn’t going to turn it into a Subway sandwich shop or demolish it and turn it into parking?”
Whitmer says his No. 1 reason for not buying the bar is he’s almost certain he’s going to run for the state House of Representatives next year.
“Mort’s is a prestigious bar in Old Town,” Whitmer says. “Even as a Republican, owning a bar is not that big a deal.”
However, he says it’s not his calling.
“My path lies in a different direction,” Whitmer says. “One of the last conversations that (Frank) and I had, he told me how proud he was of the stuff I’ve been doing lately and how I was getting into politics.”
He gets emotional when he says, “My brother told me he’d vote for me.”
Whitmer says that was powerful for him to hear since his brother was 14 years older.
“I think I spent a lot of my life trying to impress him and get his approval, and I think maybe that’s why I wanted to buy Mort’s in the first place.”
WICHITA — Hartmoor Arena, which does business as