On our last day in Kansas we had to fill in about 3 hours before heading out to the airport to catch our flight to New York. Going back and forward through Union Station to get to restaurants we noticed on our last walk through it a rather modern looking cafe behind some wrought iron gates. I pressed my nose up to the window and spotted a decent coffee machine, hario rack and orange accessories. We pfffff’d a bit and said that being in a railway station it was likely to be sub-standard … although did comment that we rated Joe’s Coffee in Grand Central Station in New York so definitely worth trying it out.

They had a little fridge with snacks – sandwiches, yoghurt, fruit and when we realized they had free wi-fi we decided to stay a couple of hours. We lunched on snacks then back for cappuccinos and an orange frosted sugar cookie for me. The coffee actually wasn’t that bad – they made it and the pour over I watched them make for someone else, very carefully.

The coffee tasted a little old, probably not fair because I think it’s a local roast, but reminded me of the Italian coffee shops outside of Italy that import their coffee in foil bags, it just has a bit of a grey flavor. However, it was delicious by Kansas standards and we certainly appreciated our time there. From what I could tell on Twitter they’d only been open a few weeks. Great location!

Union Station was quite Christmassy – I enjoyed being near Christmas trees and writing out most of my Christmas cards, while The Mister got out his laptop and with the deadline of a flight in his mind fixed an issue in Xero that they guys in New Zealand were struggling with. So a very successful afternoon so I didn’t mind waiting those couple of hours until our flight.

Parisi Coffee, Union Station, Kansas City, @parisicoffee

Without much hope I did my usual Google search for any independent coffee roasters in Kansas in preparation for our trip there. The Vegas Grinder and friends were packed but I thought I’d search anyway. Found one place which also had a fairly direct one-bus bus route from the hotel so thought we’d give it a go on the first of our 2 afternoons of free time off from the conference.

Bit small-town-Robert-Harris looking from the outside with its striped awnings but behold the picture of latte art on their window …

Inside it was funky cool with the glass cabinet of treats, coffee machine, lid/sugar station and white paper cups. All good signs. A few people sitting around with laptops. The coffee was good, a little weak but good flavor. The blueberry scone was dry, but I ate it – a couple of days of hotel buffet and Kansas BBQ and I was craving something ‘normal’.

On our second visit the coffee made me cry. The last and possibly only other time real tears have sprung to my eyes upon sipping a coffee has been at Customs Brew Bar in Wellington. Then because of seriously good coffee, this time, not so seriously good but pretty damn close and it was the first comforting coffee taste I’d had in several days!

As we sat in the cafe and looked out at the cold fall day with cool hipsters and their dogs coming out of goodness knows what corners of Kansas we felt very lucky to have found that cafe – and thankful to the owners for persevering in such an unexpected market.

They had cool stands to lock bikes onto our front.

Just on the next corner we found an even more hipstery store selling lots of cool dude clothes and we found a supply of Happy Socks – I got these great Xero and orange ones! So definitely a successful bus trip that day even if I did have to put up with everyone staring at the girl in the orange coat up front.

Broadway Cafe – 4106 Broadway Kansas City