Toast, a French breakfast restaurant, will open in Derby

Wichita foodies: Prepare to envy thy neighbor to the south.

By March of next year, Derby will have a new French breakfast restaurant that will offer an upscale experience and lots of pastries. It will be called Toast.

The restaurant, which will take over the middle space of a strip mall at 141 E. Kay, is another project by Brant Dumford, the CEO of Wichita’s Delano Bakery, and his wife, Nicole. Just a couple of weeks ago, I announced another project by the Dumfords — a cooperative bakery called The Coop set to open at 104 N. Baltimore early next year.

Brant describes Toast as an “upper scale breakfast restaurant” that will offer a bread-based breakfast menu with French-inspired pastries like caneles and croissants as well as dishes like brioche French toast and crioche, which Brant describes as a pastry filled with cream cheese. Toast, of couse, will also be on the menu, including avocado toast.

Brant and Nicole Dumford are now planning a French breakfast restaurant called Toast. Courtesy photo

They’ll also have more traditional items like eggs, but theirs will be prepared French style with heavy cream. Items like biscuits and gravy also will be on the menu, but their biscuits will be flavored with rosemary. Toast also will have a full coffee bar and will serve things like mimosas.

Brant said his friend Roni Attari, a longtime Wichita chef, is helping him develop the menu.

The interior, which has been gutted in preparation for a remodel, will be small and quaint, Brant said. At only 1,000 square feet, Toast will have seating for only 10 inside but the Dumfords plan to add a patio that can accommodate another 50. Toast’s hours will be 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Toast and The Coop are part of a larger plan the Dumfords have for Derby, where they moved six years ago. It troubles them that Derby’s ratio of nationally owned restaurants far outpaces locally owned, especially along the busy Rock Road corridor.

The Dumfords are among a passionate group of Derby residents who want to see the K-15 corridor, which includes places like Pizza John’s, become a sort of downtown district for the city. Its hard for startups to afford property in that area, he said, causing a “barrier to entry.”

Brant said he’s finding ways to get into older buildings with low overhead and capital costs and to give them new life. He purchased the strip center where he’s opening Toast two years ago and since then has provided a place for several women-owned businesses to open, including Sharon’s Place, a restaurant that specializes in Hawaiian plate lunches.

“We have taken it upon ourselves to lead the charge in revitalizing the K-15 corridor,” he said.

This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 10:23 AM.