Kansas City is an determined Midwestern coffee landmark, home to a far-reaching operation of coffee practice for drinkers of each turn of expertise. This entrance weekend, a city will acquire coffee lovers and professionals from opposite a United States for the U.S. Coffee Championships at KC Expo Center. Whether you’re a competing barista or usually visiting city and looking for caffeine, a Kansas City metro contains dozens of peculiarity choices for coffee connoisseurs and newbies alike.
The metro area’s coffee stage is as different as a countless suburbs and singular neighborhoods that it encompasses. It even crosses state borders, reaching into both Missouri and Kansas. The city has cafes that consolidate a quirkiest of Midwestern enlightenment as good as outlets featuring usually a good ‘ole crater of coffee, and in this way, Kansas City is a illustration of how a Midwest is creation a symbol on a specialty coffee industry.
In this guide, we lay out a featured shops, endorsed spots, and don’t-miss destinations from a city’s abounding coffee culture. You’ll find that Kansas City embodies both Midwestern attract and vast city dreams, with a ardent village of coffee liberality professionals and an knowledge for each taste. Let’s get drinking!
Quay Coffee
Photo by Cory Stipp
Quay Coffee (pronounced “key”) is a cozy, gentle space tucked in Kansas City’s River Market district, located usually north of downtown. The shop, the usually multi-roaster on this list, facilities a rotating hand-selection of some of a nation’s best coffee. On any given day, a black letterboard announcing a brews accessible could list roasters like Hammerhand Coffee, formed usually a stone’s chuck divided in Liberty, Missouri, or Upper Left Roasters formed in Portland, Oregon. Coffee offerings stagger each 4 to 6 weeks.
A stop during Quay pairs best with a travel by a Saturday Farmers’ Market or a revisit to any of a City Market’s end food offerings.
Messenger Coffee Company
Photo by Ryan Carr.
Since opening in tumble 2017, Messenger Coffee Company has turn a Kansas City coffee destination. Located inside a noble section building, a vibe here is art museum meets coffee shop. A complicated floating staircase invites we to a second-floor roasting space, coffee lab, and classroom alongside additional seating; keep going, and a third building offers a still area with entrance to a rooftop. Come here to locate expanded views of a KC skyline from a heart of a Crossroads district while sitting subsequent to a outside fireplace.
Be certain to check out a fritter box while we wait to sequence drinks. It’s filled with artistic Ibis Bakery creations like uninformed takes on classical croissants and mouthwatering desserts like a red booze brownie.
Broadway Cafe
Photo by Heather Burton.
Broadway Cafe and Roasting Company is widely regarded as a colonize of third call coffee in Kansas City. Located in a city’s sharp-witted and ancestral Westport neighborhood, Broadway Cafe is usually a stone’s chuck from some of KC’s favorite eateries and late-night hangouts. You can’t skip a cafe, with a striped shutter and classical sign, right off of Broadway.
Inside a cafe, Broadway presents a no-frills espresso menu showcasing a coffee. Baristas rope espresso ristretto-style from a La Marzocco Linea appurtenance set behind a high-top counter. Snack on a light object from a fritter case, like a sandwich or cut of cake, while sipping your drink. Settle in for an afternoon of Westport people examination from a cafe’s path seating, or lay inside and admire a heterogeneous art unresolved from a comfortable tan walls.
Aside from a quintessential cafeteria space in Westport, we can squeeze a crater of Broadway Roasting Company coffee during a cafeteria located inside a spit or during many of a Kansas City-area shops brewing Broadway.
Second Best Coffee
Photo by Aaron Rand.
Tucked unsuspectingly in a frame mall off in south Kansas City’s Waldo neighborhood, you’ll commend Second Best by a hulk eagle trademark stenciled on a window. This open and minimalistic space presents a desirable decoction of complicated purify pattern and homy nostalgia, with neat black tabletops and white transport tiles interconnected with timber fixtures and selected books. The name is meant to be cheeky: “Second Best” refers to a cafe’s continual concentration on creation and application.
The menu facilities primer brews, done exclusively regulating a Clever dripper, as good as classical espresso options. A anniversary menu offers some-more resourceful drinks, like a winter favorite 511, a shot of antecedent espresso over ice and AE Dairy eggnog surfaced with shaved Askinosie white chocolate. For a cold option, try signature Red Ribbon Nitro plain, with divert and vanilla—called a Fred—or with divert and cinnamon, a Zip Zap.
Black Dog Coffeehouse
Photo by Ryan Carr.
Black Dog Coffeehouse is a usually emporium on this list located in a state of Kansas. The coffeehouse encompasses a vast footprint in Lenexa, Kansas, a distinguished suburb on a western side of a metro. Both coffee nerds and newbies can find something to fit their fondness during Black Dog.
Black Dog serves Messenger Coffee, roasted usually 13 miles north in a Crossroads district. An espresso-forward menu can be intimidating for those new to coffee; not so during Black Dog. A specialty latte menu provides options for those who don’t take their coffee black or need something a small sweeter. Coffee options find a home alongside a smoothie preference and Rishi Teas.
At Black Dog, we won’t have to worry about anticipating a place to sit. The space facilities 3 graphic seating areas as good as a vast patio. It’s a ideal place to spend a day working, reading or socializing with a continual upsurge of provisions.
Post Coffee Company
Photo by Liz Stevens
Post Coffee Company is one of my favorite spaces in KC. Located in Kansas City suburb Lee’s Summit, it feels distant divided from a city’s dispatch and bustle. This splendid and radiant emporium with white-finished timber accents and discriminating petrify floors provides a pointed line-up for artistic coffee and work. The outcome feels roughly retreat-like.
Post offers a candid menu—including collection brew, pour-over, iced and espresso options—that highlights a flavors and characters of Post’s possess coffee, roasted on-site. Come for a coffee though don’t skip a donuts!
Also Worth Visiting
It’s unfit to prominence all of a superb coffee shops in KC’s sundry and burgeoning coffee scene. I’d also suggest checking out Monarch Coffee, Oddly Correct, Eleos, the Roasterie, PT’s Coffee, and Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters, which now doesn’t have a plcae though usually non-stop an resourceful hothouse space in partnership with Family Tree Nursery called Cafe Equinox.
SprudgeLive Lead Photographer and KC proprietor Charlie Burt also suggests checking out Blip Roasters, Splitlog, Kaldi’s, Sister Anne’s, Filling Station, and Nomads.
Lauren Miers is a food author formed in Columbia, Missouri. This is Lauren Miers’ initial underline for Sprudge.
