Welcome to Flashback Friday, a feature that runs Fridays on Kansas.com and Dining with Denise. It’s designed to take diners back in time to revisit restaurants that they once loved but that now live only in their memories — and in The Eagle’s archives.
This week’s featured restaurant, Rock Island Cafe, was a pioneering restaurant in the heart of Wichita, the Old Town district.
Before it was Tanya’s Soup Kitchen , before it was Natasha Gandhi-Rue’s The Kitchen — and way after it served as a baggage depot for the Rock Island railroad — the little building that sits at 725 E. Douglas was home to a pioneering Wichita restaurant.
Rock Island Cafe was not only one of the earliest restaurants to find success in Wichita’s then-burgeoning Old Town district , but in the mid- to late-1980s, it was the place to go for lunch.
The restaurant was opened in March of 1985 by Janet Cohlmia and her husband’s cousin, Chris Cohlmia (now Farha). Chris already had a successful restaurant — the Cork & Canape , which then operated at 2333 E. Central — but she was ready for a new challenge.