Bella Vita Bistro — an Italian restaurant that closed last month after 15 years in business — is about to make a comeback, said owner Lory Wooley.
And it will do so with help from a recognizable Wichita chef.
Wooley, who closed her restaurant at 120 N. West St. on Aug. 23, said she’s found a new place to start over. She’s taking over the old Magic Wok space at 9506 W. Central, most recently had been home to Fusion Restaurant and Catering until it closed in the spring.
The old Fusion Restaurant and Catering space near Central and Tyler will soon be the new home of Bella Vita Bistro.
She’s hoping to have the restaurant open in the new spot by Oct. 1, she said. And she’ll have a new business partner by her side.
Chef Luis Pena, who helped lead the culinary arts program at Butler Community College’s Redler Institute of the Culinary Arts for 3 1/2 years before leaving in mid-2024, is now serving as a consultant for Wooley as she reopens the restaurant.
His newly formed Grace Hospitality Group now has an ownership stake in Bella Vita Bistro, Pena said, and he will also serve as the restaurant’s head chef when it reopens.
Chef Luis Pena, right, is pictured with his wife, Alicia, left, and his children, Julisa, center, and Zoell, second from left.
Pena, who along with his wife, Alicia Pena, took over and reopened the restaurant inside the Elgin Hotel in Marion last summer — calling it Parlour 1886 — said it will be his job to build and train Bella Vita’s new kitchen staff.
Pena and Wooley said Bella Vita fans will still find their favorite dishes on the menu — things like the bruschetta, cannelloni crepes, white-sauce lasagna and house salads with spiraled carrots and beets. But Pena plans to add specialty pasta dishes to the menu and said he will prepare them a la minute, French for “cooked to order.”
“There’s a lot of things that I don’t want changed at all, and he’s absolutely OK with that,” Wooley said. “He told me to circle them all, and we’re going to work from there. It’s still Bella Vita. But he can incorporate some of his own stuff.”
Wooley said she and Pena also plan to add permanent lunch hours in the new space. Over the past several years on West Street, Bella Vita opened for lunch only on Fridays served a buffet. There won’t be a buffet at the new restaurant, she said.
A new start, a new chef
Wooley, a longtime restaurateur who opened Bella Vita Bistro in 2010, announced in mid-July that she’d have to close the restaurant. The main reason, she said, was that the space she was leasing had become infested with mice and nothing she tried kept them completely away.
Bella Vita Bistro owner Lory Wooley closed Bella Vita Bistro last month. But she’s found a new home for her Italian restaurant.
Eventually, business declined. Before she closed, though, Wooley urged people to come in for one last meal, and many of the restaurant’s longtime fans did. Bella Vita was busier than it had been in a long time during the final weeks of business, and especially during the final weekend, she said.
She didn’t want to close, she said, and even as she started winding the business down on West Street, she was looking at possible spaces elsewhere.
She’s already started remodeling the old Fusion space, adding partition walls and changing lighting. Wooley said she decided to purchase all-new kitchen equipment, but she’s bringing some of her old booths over with her. Anything that came from the old restaurant, she said, was disassembled and checked so that it didn’t accidentally transport a mouse to the new space.
The new dining room will have fewer seats but a bigger bar, where Wooley plans to offer happy-hour specials.
“Hopefully, it’s still going to kind of feel like Bella Vita, but it’s going to be Bella Vita 2.0,” she said. “It’s going to feel different but hopefully still comfortable enough that everybody still loves to come in.”
Pena said that he approached Wooley when he heard about the trouble she was having. Italian food is his specialty, Pena said, and he was intrigued. He thought maybe he could help her.
He and his wife will still keep Parlour 1886 in Marion, and Pena said he’s about to expand his restaurant group again. In the coming week, he plans to open a concept called Ninas Mexican Kitchen inside Kayson Chong’s Plentibloom Market and Cafe concept in the Ruffin Building. He’ll offer build-your-own burritos and tacos with a choice of protein.
Pena said he is excited to take on the challenge of Bella Vita, too.
“I’m a partner with Bella Vita, so I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “My interest is vested with the company now, so we’ve got to make it work.”
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Dining and Cooking