New Kansas City coffee shop with house-made pastries aims to be ‘a fun place to go’

After living in Europe, Victoria Rickart-Pontin wanted her new West Plaza coffee shop to be like her favorite hangouts there.

“Busy, sociable, a fun place to go,” she said.

She recently opened Two Sugars at 1412 Westport Road, right at the West Plaza and Westport boundaries. Customers are still welcome to bring their laptops to work on, but she mostly wants them to socialize.

Rickart-Pontin, now 26, was 14 when she started working at Ventana Gourmet Grill — an Excelsior Springs restaurant owned by her mother and her aunt. She later lived in France to study the language and then moved to London to earn a master’s degree in marketing at the University of Greenwich.

She had a job in human resources for an Overland Park company for a short stint before deciding a corporate career wasn’t for her. She started planning her coffee shop.

“I love coffee and it lets me dive into the baking world,” she said.

This week, a selection of her house-made pastries and treats included croissants, spice bites, coconut cake, muffins and cookies such as snickerdoodles and blueberry knockout (a vegan cookie). Coming up? Pumpkin coffee cake.

She also has ham and cheese sandwiches and a daily veggie sandwich such as one with spinach, sun-dried tomato and Muenster cheese.

She fell in love with the Westport area and lives five minutes from Two Sugars.

She also picked the spot for its patio. Kansas City artist Gabrielle Still did the branding and murals for the shop.

The Two Sugars name is for two scoops of sugar in tea.

“What’s better than one sugar? Two sugars. That’s my tagline,” she said.

Hours are currently 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

This story was originally published October 19, 2022 at 10:52 AM.