Olive Tree Catering is returning home.
The Toubia family is returning its catering company to the former Olive Tree Bistro banquet hall in Comotara Center at 29th and Rock Road.
“It just makes the most sense,” says Joumana Toubia.
“I know every nook and cranny. It just needs a little bit of cosmetics.”
The new 10,000-square-foot space will serve as a banquet hall, a place for Sunday and holiday brunches and a place for Piccadilly Market’s to-go deli services to operate.
The market itself, though – which has been in Piccadilly Square at Central and Rock Road for years – won’t locate there. Toubia is still looking for a small space to accommodate it.
“We’re definitely transitioning the Piccadilly to a concept that is (a) fast-casual cafe style rather than full service,” she says.
Toubia first started thinking of a move a year ago and then learned her landlord may need her space.
“We’ve been wanting to relocate,” she says.
“We love the building,” she says of the 20,000-square-foot Piccadilly Square space. “It has a lot of character, but I cannot configure the inside the way I want to.”
She says she’s looking forward to reconfiguring the Comotara space, which she moved into with her brother, Antoine, in 1987. Toubia says she thinks her brother would approve.
“He (would) say, ‘I built that for you.’”
Don Piros of Landmark Commercial Real Estate and Don Ablah of Classic Real Estatehandled the deal for the new space.
Toubia says she had “30 years of great memories” there.
“But when I left it wasn’t so.”
There were a number of maintenance issues, she says.
Corporate Caterers of Wichita most recently was in the building and made substantial upgrades.
Initially, though, Toubia says, “I didn’t want to entertain the idea.”
Toubia says the building is now in receivership, and she’s confident she’s not going to have the same problems.
Though she doesn’t yet have an exact time line for moving – the catering and brunches will be uninterrupted and the fast-casual cafe will follow by the end of the year – Toubia is certain of how she feels about it.
“It feels good.”
Reach Carrie Rengers at 316-268-6340 or crengers@wichitaeagle.com. Follow her on Twitter:@CarrieRengers.
