Iola’s Audley finds success in Wichita

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March 16, 2013 - 12:00 AM

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If you happen to be in Wichita today, and have any Irish blood in your veins — even if you don’t — you might want to stop by The Artichoke restaurant/bar, 811 N. Broadway, for its annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

And, if you happen to be from Iola, you just might get special treatment.

Pat Audley owns the restaurant and watering hole with wife Molly and could tell some tales about Iola.

He grew up here in the 1950s and ’60s. His parents, Joe and Helen Audley, ran Topp’s Drive Inn, 501 N. State St., that specialized in burgers and shakes, as well as chili that some Iolans still recall so vividly they salivate.

 

AUDLEY IS starting his 30th year at The Artichoke with its biggest day of the year the annual St. Pat’s bash.

The Wichita Eagle regaled readers about the celebration, Audley’s role and his life this week.

Some excerpts follow:

“This place has been the luck of the Irish for us,” said Audley, who opened the bar along with a couple of partners on Feb. 24, 1984. “I remember I once asked my father, ‘What is the luck of the Irish?’ He said, ‘It’s nothing more than preparation meets opportunity.’”

The preparation for Audley, 61, started during his childhood. His father — a first generation Irish immigrant — lived in Kansas City and traveled to Iola with the intention of buying a prefab diner to take back with him. But he and his wife, Helen, liked the little community and decided to stay.

In the early 1950s, they opened Topp’s …

“I was chief carhop and dishwasher,” Audley said. “I got 25 cents a hour and all the double cheeseburgers I could eat.”

Audley went on to a career in teaching. In the early 1980s, he was working at Washington Elementary School and was looking for ways to supplement his income. (That’s when The Artichoke was born.)

Audley continued to work as a teacher until he retired two years ago. At his last job, at the Judge Riddel Boys Ranch, he met and fell in love with his wife, Molly — a corrections officer 18 years his junior and a redheaded Irish lass herself. The pair married and now run The Artichoke together.

In early 2009, Audley was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

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