WICHITA — In true Italian style, Lory Wooley is making her new Bella Vita Bistro a family affair.
Wooley is opening the restaurant in the former Kebab House space at 120 N. West St. (which many people remember as Cafe Istanbul and the Grinder Man).
Crystal and Adrian Prud Homme DeLodder, Wooley’s daughter and son-in-law, will run the restaurant with her.
Wooley says her husband, Paul, “claims I bribed them to move to Wichita so that I could be near my grandbabies.”
The Wooleys moved here from Michigan two years ago when Paul Wooley, a physician, became chief operating officer for the Center of Innovation for Biomaterials in Orthopaedic Research.
Bella Vita, which opens March 1, means “beautiful life” in Italian.
Neither the Wooleys nor the Prud Homme DeLodders are Italian, but Lory Wooley says, “We were under the impression that the town was in real need of Italian.”