Kansas City’s new bakery and coffee shop pays homage to health care workers
“From saving lives to baking delights.”
A painting inside the bakery by artist Viktoria Sterkhova pretty well sums up Andrea Rainey’s journey with those words. In the piece, a stethoscope snakes past a coffee cup and croissant.
Rainey is a nurse at Children’s Mercy who knows the drag of early morning shifts. But as of this week, she’s also a bakery owner whose treats hope to serve as a pick-me-up for local health care workers (and the rest of the city).
Her new spot, Morning Rounds, is in the Crossroads at 217 W. 19 Terrace. It lives between several hospitals, like Truman Medical and Children’s Mercy.
Right now, Morning Rounds is still in the soft opening phase and is open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Thursday through Saturday. She plans on posting updates on Morning Rounds’ hours via her social media page.
After the grand opening sometime in October, she’ll expand to 5:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. The early morning hours are largely for the health care community, whose days often start (and sometimes end) before the sun rises.
Rainey knows how hard it is to find a coffee or sweet treat before early morning shifts.
Her treats include white chocolate macadamia cookies, croissants, classic sugar cookies, vanilla bean cake, brown butter rosemary shortbread and more.
On the coffee side, she’s offering lattes and other espresso drinks with a variety of syrups.
So far, customers have been reacting positively to her little shop — which has a handful of tables and chairs, as well as Wi-Fi for customers.
“It’s gone as well as I could’ve hoped for,” Rainey said. “I feel like it’s been really fun seeing friendly faces — people from the neighborhood coming in, finally something to show for all the construction that they’ve been seeing going on.”