FLIP + CHING

The Flight Bar at Chicken N Pickle

Posted on September 6, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.

If you haven’t checked out the Flight Bar at Chicken N Pickle, I highly recommend it. The flights are an excellent deal. You get to sample several drinks for a very reasonable price. And the pours are quite generous. Check out these pics.

Besides the delicious drinks, they also have a collection of fun games so you can go hang out and play games with your friends while enjoying the flights.

Here’s the menu for when you go:

You can get four different flights — margarita flight, mimosa flight, and wine flights (red or white) — and there’s also light fare that you can share like various dips, wings, and other things. But for the best deals, I recommend going during happy hour. Let me know what you think when you visit!

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The End of an Era

Posted on August 30, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.

For many years, Espresso To Go Go has been open everyday except for Tuesday. Then, a couple of months ago, they updated their hours to be open 7 days a week. Super awesome, right? Except then, shortly after that, they decided to close for good. It is the end of an era, and a super sad time for all coffee lovers. 🙁

On their final week of business, even the universe was sad. Mother Nature delivered tears of rain. I feel like it rained every morning that week. My coffee buddy Chris Townley and I braved the rain for one last fix.

Goodbye, Icy Queen Ann. Until we meet again.

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Parking Changes Coming to Wichita

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Ching under Community.

I’m taking a break from catching up this super behind blog to talk about the parking changes that are coming to downtown Wichita in 2025. A few weeks ago someone posted about the parking changes because the changes that were being implemented on January 1 were extending beyond just downtown. It was also impacting Delano district. Delano is where the Senior Services of Wichita and Seneca Park (across the street) is located. They were concerned about how the parking changes would impact parking in the area and how this would create a hardship for seniors, not just financially but also because we all know that many seniors are technologically-changed.

When I saw that there were a couple of meetings at Senior Services and one of them was at 5 PM on a Thursday, I decided to attend that one. I had to reschedule a waxing appointment to do so but I had to know what was going on. I stole the photos below from the Senior Services Facebook page and they are from the Monday morning meeting. They’re better than my photo from Thursday so I decided to use theirs instead.

Assistant City Manager Troy Anderson came to address the group, which mostly consisted of people who are very upset about the parking changes. As you would expect, the people in the community in favor of the changes or those who are indifferent, didn’t really feel a need to attend. I fall under the indifferent category and mostly attended out of curiosity.

In all other cities that Brian and I have visited, we’ve had to pay for parking in the downtown areas, so I am neither surprised nor against the idea of paying for parking. It seemed to me that the parking rates/fees would be reasonable and that the monies collected would go toward maintenance and upkeep of parking and would benefit the immediate area overall so I don’t mind having to pay. As a consumer my main concern was whether it would be convenient, e.g. will there be an app and multiple options to pay for parking because if it’s a pain in the neck then, no matter how cheap it is, people will be discouraged from going to the area just because they won’t want to mess with parking.

As a pickleball player, another concern I had is of the impact to parking around Seneca Park. It’s currently free to park all around the park and also along the street in front of Senior Services. None of the information I had seen showed that this area would be affected by the parking changes but I wanted to know for sure.

Anyway, let’s share some background information first. Here’s a parking report presented by Health ICT back in 2018.

Troy also mentioned this video about the high cost of free parking which supports the notion of moving towards charging for parking in certain areas of the city. Having traveled to other places where paid parking is now the norm, I completely understand why the city wants to move in this direction; however, it’s been really nice having free parking available in our city.

At the meeting at Senior Services on Thursday, we got to see a sample parking payment kiosk and we got to see the maps of impacted areas.

The map above depicts the area that they’re looking to implement paid parking starting on January 1. The picture below is a closer look at Delano. It looks like paid parking will be mostly along Douglas and there might be some paid parking along Walnut, Handley, Osage, Oak, and Sycamore also (but I’m not quite sure what all the color-coding actually means).

It looks like the area around Seneca Park will be largely unaffected; however, I am worried that people who don’t want to pay for parking along Douglas and Walnut will end up parking on the street along Seneca Park and walk to wherever they’re going thus, making parking more limited for pickleball players who frequent the park. It’s possible but we don’t really know for sure what will happen and how people will behave until they implement the changes. I do know there are quite a few people who are vehemently against the idea and they were quite vocal at the meeting I attended last week.

There is another meeting happening tonight at Nortons Brewing Co. If you are at all interested in the changes that are coming, I highly recommend attending.

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Favorite Happy Hour Spots

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.

Since taking a temporary break from our weekly Hello Fresh meal kits, Brian and I have been making the happy hour rounds. Here are some of our favorite spots:

6S Steakhouse – first call (4:30 to 6:00 pm everyday), $5 drinks on Mondays, $15 sangria flights on Tuesdays
Bella Luna Cafe – $5 martinis, cocktails and mules and $2 off wine by the glass 3:00 to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday
The Belmont – all day happy hour drinks on Sundays
Carlos O’Kelly’s – $2 mug-o-ritas on Tuesdays and $3 jumbo margaritas on Thursdays
Carrabba’s – $7 drinks and bites from 4:00 to 7:00 pm daily
Chicken N Pickle – $2 off specialty cocktails, wine, and draft beer from 2:00 to 6:00 pm and 9:00 to 11:00 pm Monday through Friday
Cocoa Dolce – $1 off drinks from 4:00 to 7:00 pm
FioRito Ristorante – 4:30 to 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm to close Tuesday through Thursday; 10:00 pm to close on Fridays and Saturdays
Hopping Gnome – $5 pours all day on Wednesdays
Local Flavor Restaurant – $5 food and discounted drinks 2:00 to 5:00 pm and 9:00 pm to midnight Tuesday through Sunday
Monarch – all day happy hour drinks on Tuesdays
O’Malley’s Irish Pub – drink discounts and half priced pizza/appetizers from 2:00 to 7:00 pm daily
Old Chicago – happy hour from 3:00 to 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm to close Monday through Friday
On the Border – $5 bar bites and $3 drink specials from 3:00 to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday
Piatto – half priced drinks, salads, and select apps from 4:00 to 6:00 pm Sunday through Thursday
River City Brewing Company – $3 core beers and $9 pizzas all day on Wednesdays
Social Tap Drinkery – all day social hour on Thursdays
Stearman Field Bar and Grill – all day happy hour drinks on Mondays and Wednesdays
YaYa’s Euro Bistro – half priced drinks and $5 off pizzas and apps 3:00 to 6:00 pm Monday through Thursday

I know there are other restaurants with other (and maybe even better happy hour specials) and a lot of these places that I listed have different specials on various days but this reference list represents what we (maybe just mostly me because this is MY list) are most interested in. I’m really just using this as a reference list for next time I’m looking grab bite. If it helps you great and, if it doesn’t, that’s okay because I’m documenting this for me. However, if you do know of some good happy hour or daily specials that we should check out, please leave them in the comments because I’m always down to discovering new places to eat.

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Christie Pink in Wichita

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.

This post is dedicated to my friend Christie Pink who I first met over three years ago when Erica Case (then Lopez/Davis) played in the Middle States regional pickleball tournament. I think, at the time, this was my first every regional tournament experience.

That tournament was in May 2021 and then I saw her again in January 2022 when I traveled to St. Louis for the Dink In the New Year pickleball tournament with Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance. I played women’s doubles with Tiffany and mixed doubles with Devon Fuller. We arrived a day before the tournament and we ended up connecting with Christie and her crew at Missouri Pickleball Club.

My next notable Christie sighting was at the Minto US Open in April 2022. It was my very first US Open experience.

I got to play against Christie again in the 2022 Middle States Regional, and I think we’ve been at the same tournaments a few more times during the two years that I was playing a ton of tournaments. She was a skill level above me in women’s so, except for that first year, I hadn’t really had to face off against her in women’s but I tended to “play up” a division in mixed so I was more likely to run into her there.

Fast forward a couple of years later, she ends up going to Wichita on a business trip and reaches out to me out of the blue. She was so gracious to let Tiff, Donnie, and I play with her and her friends at MPC all those years ago so this was my turn to return the favor. She arrived on Sunday and, to make the most of her visit last month, I arranged for a couple of play sessions for us.

Our first stop was Chicken N Pickle for mixed doubles with Ramon Lozano and Ryan Kellenbarger.

I purposely chose Ramon because they had met before at the 2022 Middle States Regional. He was my partner when we played against Christie and her partner in that tournament, and so I figured they would remember each other. I invited Ryan because I needed someone who would be fun and balance Ramon.

Our next stop was open play at the Pickle Club from 5 to 7 PM with Susie Ternes and Greta Siemens. Neither of them had met Christie before but I thought they would be a good fit, and they both just happened to be available. Schedules can be difficult to coordinate sometimes.

A couple of weeks ago, when Christie was back on another work trip, her visit coincided with PickleCon, PPA Kansas City Open, OKC Picklemania so the folks that I got to play with us on her first visit were all out of town but the nice thing about Wichita is that we have an abundance of fun pickleball players so it’s pretty easy to put together a great group.

Not to be left out, Karen Fox decided she would host her own PickleCon at the Pickle Club. LOL. Our group that day consisted of Chris Wilson, Mark Armstrong, Donnie Lesperance, Tami Racine, Kimberly Howe, Tiffany Lesperance, Karen Fox, and Janelle Lindeman.

Brian brought us some Wichita Brewing Co. pizzas and a cooler of bevvies so we ended up hanging out and having a little picnic afterward which was a nice end to the evening and play session.

The next day, Christie and I had a mixed doubles session at CNP with Dustin Herman and Noi Sourinthone. For dinner that night, Brian and I took Christie to Stearman Field in Benton (sounds far but it’s really not that far from Wichita) and then we drove out to the Keeper for the Plains for iconic Wichita photo ops.