Coffee

There are specific times of day when I desire to drink coffee: early in the morning, mid-morning, or very late at night. Sometimes I like to enjoy a cup o' joe after a nice dinner, but a nice dinner is so rarely consumed by me these days (for those just tuning in: I am poor). I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that most Kansas City coffee shops/houses close in the mid-to-late evening. One More Cup closes at 7:30pm. Broadway Cafe closes at 9. Westport Coffee House stays open until 11 on weekdays and midnight on the weekends. If I want to get a cup of coffee and stay up late, I have to go downtown to YJ's, and that's only open 24 hours on the weekends. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT KANSAS CITY? Bars are open until 3am! THREE AM! Every night of the week! There's an entire 16+ crowd just longing for a place to go and "hang out" for a while. Now, I'm no business major, and I've heard that the "after 8" crowd is mostly hanging out instead of buying coffee...but, I mean, that's a really lame, only-in-it-for-the-money, selfish, capitalist excuse to close the doors so early. I'm of the opinion that a coffee house/shop provides more than just coffee to its customers. It provides a communal place of meeting. A gathering place. Where are the comfortable couches, board/card games, bookshelves? Where are the rugs? The movie nights? The live music? I'm so sad that Crave on 39th closed its doors. That was a COFFEE HOUSE. An actual house that was turned into a coffee shop. Plenty of rooms for hanging around. Couches. Movie nights. Book club meetings. Live music. Tables. Deck area. I just want a place I can go hang out that's not my own living room, and that's not a bar. I need a place I can comfortably curl up with a good book and read all day. I want to be able to go out to coffee at 9:30pm and stay for hours and hours talking about philosophy and films and theater. I know I am not the only one who's looking for a place like that in Kansas City. My friends come from smaller cities like Wichita and Omaha and I can't even get them a cup of coffee if it's 11 o'clock at night in the weekday, unless it's from QT. How can we remedy this situation? If it comes down to it, I guess I'll just have to open one up myself.