Founder of longtime Wichita restaurant has died, leaving his family and customers in mourning

Until about two and a half months ago, Ken Hertel would keep hours at his “office” inside of Barn’rds, the roast beef restaurant at 3860 N. Maize Road.

His office, in reality, was a table just south of the condiment stand, but he’d be there every day from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on the dot, chatting with old customers and watching over the dining room.

But then his health, which had been deteriorating for years, got worse, and Hertel — who brought Barn’rds to Wichita in 1983 — couldn’t visit his office anymore.

“He hated it,” said his son, Troy Hertel, who has been overseeing the restaurant for the past 15 years.

On Tuesday, Ken Hertel died at age 82, peacefully and surrounded by family, his son said. Barn’rds will be closed on Monday while Ken Hertel’s family attends his services.

“My dad was the only person I know who didn’t have a cell phone or computer,” Troy said on Thursday. “He did have a lot of will, yet he had a big heart...I will miss him.”

In 1981, Ken partnered with a former Arby’s franchisee named Sam Marvin and opened the first Barn’rds in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Marvin was not happy that Arby’s had transitioned from serving real roast beef to a processed version, and he wanted to start a restaurant that would prioritize quality.

The restaurant was a success, and at one point, there were 13 Barn’rds operating across the region. In 1983, Ken and his wife, Carol, decided to open a franchise of the restaurant in Wichita, a city they chose because it was closer to their aging parents. Their Barn’rds opened in a barn-shaped building at 2037 N. Woodlawn on Dec. 20, 1983. Troy, who was a senior in high school at the time, remembers that Wichita was being hit by a blizzard on opening day.

It took a while for Barn’rds to gain a following, Troy remembered, but eventually, Wichita discovered the restaurant’s roast beef sandwiches, vegetable soup and chicken salad. Ken knew his customers, Troy said, and remembers his father sometimes calling to check on regular customers when they hadn’t been into the restaurant for a while.

“And God bless them, they’re the people who kept us going,” Troy said.

In 2006, when the now-busy intersection 37th and Maize Road was nothing but undeveloped fields, Ken had the “vision” to buy a piece of property on the corner, his son said. The Hertels announced the following year their plans to open a west-side Barn’rds on the spot, but it didn’t happen until 2020. By then, Troy had been running the restaurant for 11 years, and Ken was starting to have health problems.

But he stayed involved with the process of opening the new Barn’rds and closing the original one.

“He still helped me, or we’d discuss things,” Troy said. “In our early years, we used to fight a lot. But I think over the years I wore him down, and now, we agreed on almost everything.”

Troy said his father was easy to work for but expected a lot from his employees. He was generous, too: Troy remembers that Ken would help employees buy cars or would rent apartments in his name for employees facing tough times.

“One of the many things he taught me was to take care of the employees,” Troy said. “They are the lifeblood of our business.”

The family is still trying to accept its loss, Troy said, and his mother — Ken’s widow, Carol — has been so busy attending to details, she hasn’t had time to slow down and properly grieve.

Troy said the family has been touched by the outpouring of support they’ve received since announcing Ken’s death on social media.

When the Hertel family opened the new Barn’rds during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, they had a hard time saying goodbye to their original building on Woodlawn, which now is the site of a car wash.

Once the doors were finally locked on closing day, tears flowed and the family, including Ken, popped a bottle of champagne.

But Ken was philosophical about the closing.

“It’s not the building,” Ken told The Eagle at the time. “It’s the relationships we’ve created over 37 years with people. We’ve seen three generations of people coming through our restaurant. They became our family.”