I’ve been making the coffee rounds this week while researching an upcoming article for Imbibe, getting me, as my oldest daughter puts it, all coffeed up. Which is not a bad thing. I’m astounded at how much Kansas City’s coffee culture has expanded over the last couple years, much less since the Broadway Café & Roastery opened almost two decades ago.
Back then, there were few places you could get a cup and just hang out. Now there’s Oddly Correct Coffee Roasters near Westport, where Gregory Kolsto does exquisite pour-overs in between talking music, neighborhoods and beans with customers, roasting coffee and printing on his letterpress.
Ben Helt of Benetti’s Coffee Experience in Raytown, a micro-roaster known for ristretto-style drinks. Stubbie Jurgens of E.F. Hobbs, roasting beans from Costa Rica, East Timor and elsewhere and toolin’ around town in a coffee-and-cupcake truck. The Filling Station. Parisi’s new Union Station shop. One More Cup, Ethiopian coffee heaven at Revocup and all those awesome Latte Lands. The Roasterie.
And of course Broadway, which won a face-off with Starbuck’s and continues supplying it’s own coffee shop and dozens of wholesale accounts with beautifully roasted beans purchased from farmers they actually know. Thanks to you all for making KC an exceedingly easy place to coffee up.
