Owner of strip center at Kellogg and Seneca finds tenant who wants all 14,000 square feet

Denise Neil
·4 min read

Back in November, I told you about the new owner of the strip center at the northeast corner of Kellogg and Seneca — which has been home to places like Tight Ends and Tutors Pizza — and his quest to find new tenants to take over the space.

Now, building owner Hamid Bakhtiari has found someone who wants all 14.000 square feet of the strip center for one business. And though it’s not a restaurant, it is food related.

Bill Rowe, who in 2002 opened Blue Moon Caterers, said his operation has outgrown its longtime building at 8406 W. Central, where he also operates his Villa Luna venue space. He’s been searching for a spot where the business could spread out, he said, and he’s found it in the Kellogg and Seneca strip center, which was built in 2019.

He’s working with architects now and plans a complete overhaul of the strip center, both inside and out. He’ll join the center’s two separate buildings together and gut the interior. When he’s done, the building will have a giant kitchen, an operations warehouse and a processing area where staff can load trucks for catering gigs. It’ll also have offices for the company’s staff, and Rowe said he’s reserving about 2,500 square feet on the north end of the center for “growth in the future.” He’s not ready to commit to anything yet, he said, but whatever he puts in that space could have a retail component.

Rowe said he’s not sure yet whether he’ll keep the lease on the West Central space as well, but he will decide soon.

“We’re jammed into this building, and we need some more space,” said Rowe, who took over the building on West Central in 2012.

Blue Moon Caterers has operated out of a building at 8406 W. Central since 2012, but the company has outgrown the space.
Blue Moon Caterers has operated out of a building at 8406 W. Central since 2012, but the company has outgrown the space.

Rowe, who owned the once-popular Red Beans Bayou Grill from 2008 until it closed in July 2014, has been focused on catering for the past decade, and the business has “grown dramatically,” he said. Last year, the company worked 900 events, and Rowe is up to 33 full-time and 30 part-time employees.

Blue Moon has become a go-to for people putting on weddings, corporate events, fundraisers, banquets, receptions, business lunches and social events. In 2014, he added another “brand” onto Blue Moon, which is called Lunar Culinary Services. It provides daily catering services at places like hospitals, schools and day care centers, and it has grown to the point that it brings in almost as much business as events do.

“That’s one of the reasons we’re moving,” he said. “We don’t have enough space anymore because of our contracts.”

Blue Moon also manages the rooftop event space for NICHE, the new culinary school that WSU Tech opened last year.

Landlord Bakhtiari, owner of local MobileComm stores and of various commercial properties around town, said that NailTime, the nail salon that’s currently operating in the strip center Blue Moon is taking over, will find a new location. He said he’s helping them with the search.

Bakhtiari said that Blue Moon will fit perfectly into the space and the neighborhood.

Bill Rowe, owner of Blue Moon Caterers, is pictured last year at his annual Willie C’s Week, when he revives dishes from the once-popular Wichita restaurant he owned.
Bill Rowe, owner of Blue Moon Caterers, is pictured last year at his annual Willie C’s Week, when he revives dishes from the once-popular Wichita restaurant he owned.

“Bill and his team were really easy to work with, and I’m super excited to have such a tenured local business going into that location,” he said.

Rowe said construction should start in a few months. He hopes to be moved into the new building by early fall. Regardless of what he decides about the West Central building, the company will remain there until it’s ready to move.

Despite that, he said, Blue Moon has to skip its annual Fat Tuesday party, which always fills the West Central building with Cajun music and favorite Cajun dishes people remember from the Red Beans menu. His staff has to be out of town for a catering convention on Fat Tuesday, he said, and he can’t pull it off this year. He does plan to bring it back in future years.

Rowe, who also once owned the iconic Willie C’s restaurants in Wichita, is planning to revive items from that restaurant’s menu during a special event that will run March 1-3 in the West Central building. Look for more details on that as the date gets closer.