Tanya Tandoc fs ’10 was most widely known as a restaurateur and chef. She loved whipping up exotic cuisine at her Wichita restaurant, Tanya’s Soup Kitchen, a popular go-to eatery on East Douglas. She studied at San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy, earning certification at age 22. After moving to Wichita in 1992, she worked at the Old Mill Tasty Shop, became executive chef at Larkspur and began both her own catering company and restaurant.
But she was also an artist, who painted in watercolor and gouache, and worked in mixed media, collage and in fiber, too. After the closing in 2004 of her original Tanya’s Soup Kitchen, launched in 1997, Tandoc took up the study of ceramics at Wichita State.
She was a musician, too, a cellist who enjoyed playing experimental folk-roots music. And she was a dancer, who relished learning and performing many types of dance, belly dance and hula, to name just two. She also loved disco. “I’ve always made things,” she explained in a 2012 The Shocker interview. “There’re so many things to do, and I love to create for the people who enjoy my personal form of disco.” By disco, she didn’t mean the dance form. She meant her je ne sais quoi, her “certain something” or personal style.
Hers was a uniquely independent style: a one-of-a-kind blend of free spirit and Kansas entrepreneur. “My main goal in life is to keep making things,” she said once. “And to have fun.” Tandoc died June 4, 2015, in Wichita.
