This Wichita restaurant has been around for 30 years. Soon, it will move to a new home.

Passage to India was Wichita’s first Indian restaurant when it opened in 1994 in the Plaza West shopping center at Central and West. And the restaurant — known for its lunch buffet and its fresh naan cooked in a clay oven — has been operating out of the same aging strip center at 21st and Woodlawn since 2003.

Soon, though, the longtime Wichita restaurant will relocate to a modern new home.

Passage to India owner Md Zakir Hossen says that later this year, he’s moving the 30-year-old restaurant at 6100 E. 21st St. to a building that local lawyer and developer Abdul Arif is about to put up near the northeast corner of 21st and Oliver, right next to the Family Dollar.

Arif recently started construction on the site, where he plans to put up not only a building that will hold Passage to India and another restaurant but also 80 apartments and 16 duplexes. He’s calling the new development WStudio-21.

Hossen bought Passage to India from Arif and his nephew, businessman Tariq Azmi, just before the pandemic in 2020. Arif had acquired the local favorite from longtime owner Kuldip Singh three years earlier and even then said he hoped to move the restaurant to a newer, more contemporary space.

It’s past time for the restaurant to move, said Arif, describing the strip center at 21st and Woodlawn that it calls home as “sad” and “dilapidated.”

Current owner Hossen said he agrees that a new space is long overdue, and he’s excited about the new building, which will have seating inside for 40 and room for another 35 on an attractive attached patio that will be fitted with tables, chairs and umbrellas. He’s also planning to put a barbecue grill on the patio and use it to make dishes like tandoori chicken, served straight off the grill.

“I want to do something more customer friendly,” he said.

The ready-to-assemble metal building that will hold Passage to India will be delivered during the second week of April, Arif said. He’s preparing the site now.

Hossen said he hopes to move Passage to India there in August or September. He’ll keep operating the restaurant at 21st and Woodlawn until he’s ready to move, though, he said.

The new space will have something new for Passage to India: a drive-through. But Hossen, whose restaurant will occupy the north side of the building, will share the drive-through with the tenants taking over the space on the south side: 360 NY Deli & Grill. Owners Faisal Assaedi Naseem Allahabi and Muqnea Elaya — who also own Nas Kitchen at 21st and Amidon — are planning four of the New York-style Middle Eastern to-go delis, and one of them will be Passage to India’s neighbor.

Hossen said that, especially after COVID, a drive-through feels necessary.

“That’s the game changer,” he said. “Nowadays, after the COVID era, a bigger percentage of people — especially the younger generation — don’t come in the restaurant to eat. They order online and pick up. And we want to get that audience.”

Though Passage to India’s customers are 90 percent locals, Hossen said, more and more Indian students are attending Wichita State University, which will be right by the new restaurant spot. The new address will help him get customers from WSU as well as from the future apartments and duplexes that Arif will build next door.

Also, he said, Passage to India will still serve its famous lunch buffet after it moves.

“We are excited to get to the new place and the new environment,” he said. “It will be more enjoyable.”

Stay tuned for updates on the move when it gets closer.