After closing its Towne East Square location in late 2020, Noodles & Co. is reopening a second restaurant in Wichita, but this time it’s going west.
The Colorado-based chain of noodle restaurants has signed a lease for the northern end-cap space at a new retail strip center that was just built at the northwest corner of 37th and Maize, on the opposite end of the Five Guys. A company spokesperson says the new location is expected to open sometime late this year.
After the Towne East Square closure, Noodles & Co. says it will keep its location at Rock Road and K-96, and that all the team members at Towne East have been offered a transfer to a nearby location.
The west-side restaurant, though, will have a new design feature.
Noodles & Co., which has about 450 restaurants nationwide, has introduced a prototype that features a pickup window, which allows customers to place an order through the Noodles website or mobile app, and then retrieve their food through the drive-up window lane.
“While there are a few Noodles locations that currently have this feature, this will be the first in the Kansas market,” said Brian Anderson, the company’s communications manager.
The 37th and Maize strip center was uniquely designed to have window lanes on both ends of the building as drive-throughs and pickup orders are increasingly in high demand in the era of Covid-19. Five Guys, which closed its location in front of the Lowe’s on Maize Road to reopen Sept. 15 in the new building, is also introducing a new pickup window there.
Bradley Tidemann of J.P. Weigand & Sons handled the leasing for the strip center. With the two end-caps now leased, he says the middle space is still available.
Article by Shelby Kellerman from the Wichita Business Journal.
