New tea & cocktail spot brings together Asian creativity, culture from across KC
On the afternoon of May 20, Tian Tea House closed earlier than usual.
By evening, the daytime banner above the door of the Columbus Park business came down, replaced by the darker branding of its nighttime counterpart, Moon Bar. Outside, a crowd formed along the sidewalk and wrapped around the side of the building, waiting for the official debut of a concept years in the making.
Before the doors opened, youth lion dancers moved through the space in a traditional blessing ceremony, weaving between guests and collecting dollar bills offered through the lions’ mouths as onlookers cheered. When the performance ended, the crowd filed inside the 30-seat bar, where husband-and-wife owners Saranya and Zachary Hubbard welcomed guests into the permanent home of a business that had spent years moving between pop-up locations across Kansas City.
For Saranya Hubbard, the opening represented more than the launch of a cocktail bar. It marked the realization of an idea she had carried since moving to Kansas City from Thailand in 2020.
“It was more like a cocktail bar, because that had already been a dream for a while,” Hubbard said. “I started working in the industry here, and then I saw more of the picture and the possibilities in Kansas City. People are very open-minded, especially downtown, and the opportunity is not as hard like a big city like New York for small people like us to be able to open a small business here.”
The food and drink program extends beyond the Hubbards’ own creations. Rather than operating as a standalone concept, Tian Tea House and Moon Bar have become gathering points for a network of local Asian entrepreneurs, featuring menu items and products from fellow chefs, bakers and small-business owners across the Kansas City area. Those partnerships have helped turn the space into both a hospitality destination and a showcase for the region’s growing Asian culinary community.
Moon Bar opened as the nighttime counterpart to Tian Tea House, the daytime concept the couple launched late last year at 911 E. Fifth St. The shared space transforms between the two businesses each day, with Tian operating as a slow tea bar before shifting into a cocktail-focused lounge in the evening.
Sharing tea culture with Kansas City
The tea concept came later in the business’s development.
Hubbard said for her and her husband, Moon Bar was always the original vision, but after signing the lease, the couple saw an opportunity to make fuller use of the building by creating a daytime business that aligned with her background in tea culture.
Born and raised in Bangkok’s Chinatown, Hubbard grew up in a Thai Chinese household where food and tea were central to daily life.
“I come from a very conservative Chinese family,” she said. “For my parents, eating is very important to us, even tea. I grew up already drinking tea, and there were a lot of tea shops in Chinatown that I would run around to.”
That upbringing helped shape the menu and overall approach at Tian, where teas are sourced from China, Japan and Thailand. Hubbard said authenticity in ingredients matters, even if the overall aesthetic of the business is intentionally modern rather than tied to one national identity.
“It’s more like a modern space,” she said. “We are not trying to make it fully authentic. We want to do a little twist here and there. I want to embrace more about Asian, not the specific country.”
Spotlighting Asian flavors in cocktails
Moon Bar follows a similar philosophy, with the cocktail menu pulling from a broader range of Asian influences.
Signature drinks include a miso old fashioned, an oolong Manhattan and the kaffir lime soda, which combines Suntory Roku gin with kaffir lime, lychee, lemon, saffron and soda. Bar food includes Thai-inspired deviled eggs topped with tamarind, fried onions and cilantro, alongside rotating collaborations with local chefs and food vendors.
For guests who secured early reservations, the opening offered more than first access to the cocktail menu. It provided a front-row seat to a cultural tradition that set the tone for the evening.
Alex Omoro, a Kansas City-based freelance food writer for The Pitch, attended the opening reservation, and said the lion dance blessing stood out as one of the night’s most memorable moments, particularly because the performers were children.
“I thought it was really beautiful seeing the next generation kind of carrying out these traditions,” Omoro said. “They did an incredible job. It was really fun to watch.”
For Omoro, the ceremony reinforced that the opening was designed as more than a standard nightlife launch. It felt intentional, rooted in culture and community in a way that carried through the rest of the evening.
Inside, guests encountered the same thoughtful aesthetic that has defined Tian Tea House, now transformed into a dimmer, more intimate nighttime setting. Omoro described the atmosphere as welcoming, with the hospitality matching the philosophy Hubbard has built the business around.
“The service was incredible as always,” he said. “Saranya is just such a beautiful soul, and Zach as well. They both radiated such a good energy.”
The drinks also made an impression.
Omoro pointed to the miso honey old fashioned as a standout, particularly for guests who may typically avoid spirit-forward cocktails.
“People talk about old fashioneds being really strong,” he said. “But I feel like the miso honey old fashioned is more approachable. If someone wants that old fashioned taste while having a drink that’s not as intense, this is one I would recommend.”
For Hubbard, whose concept is built around hospitality as much as flavor, that kind of guest response reflects exactly what she hoped Moon Bar would become.
Other local creators featured at Tian Tea House
Tian’s daytime food offerings also reflect that broader collaborative approach.
Without a full kitchen, the tea house relies on partnerships with local food entrepreneurs whose products help round out the menu. Among them is chef James Chang, the Taiwanese-born founder of catering company JChang’s Kitchen, whose sandwich offerings have become part of Tian’s food program.
Chang, who was born in Taipei and immigrated to the United States in the 1980s, comes from a family steeped in the restaurant business and said he has spent most of his life around food.
“I’ve been in a restaurant in one form or another since I was 8,” Chang said.
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That experience helped shape his place in Kansas City’s culinary scene, though he said the path was not always one he wanted.
“I freaking hated the kitchen,” he said. “I hated the restaurant business because I grew up in it and I saw the grind.”
Over time, that relationship changed. Chang now operates private dinners, pop-ups and his growing chili oil business, but said food remains closely tied to culture and family identity.
“Food has always been the way that my family shows their love,” he said.
His partnership with Tian reflects the collaborative spirit that has increasingly become part of Kansas City’s Asian culinary community, where chefs and entrepreneurs often support one another through shared spaces, events and menu partnerships.
That same sense of collaboration extends to Tian’s dessert offerings.
Thai-born baker Kannika Costello, owner of Mooyueibaker, supplies baked goods for the tea house, adding another personal cultural perspective to the menu.
Costello’s route into food was unconventional. Before becoming a full-time baker, she worked in office jobs, including as a secretary and in human resources. Baking only became part of her life in 2020, when she volunteered to make a wedding cake for her cousin despite never having baked before.
After teaching herself through YouTube tutorials and trial and error, she successfully created a three-tier wedding cake for 150 guests, eventually turning that unexpected discovery into a business after relocating to Kansas.
Her desserts, including custom cakes, cookies and her popular ube halaya cake, have since become part of the broader local Asian food ecosystem.
“My mom always asks how did you become a baker, because we really don’t do sweets,” Costello said. “My family loves to cook and we love to eat spicy foods.”
Like Chang, Costello sees her work as part of a larger support system among Asian-owned businesses in Kansas City.
“The first pop-up I did was at Café Cà Phê,” she said. “A lot of us have met there and become friends. We support each other and we never have to compete or be jealous. When we work together we have a better community.”
Filling a niche in Kansas City
As a whole, the menu reflects both Hubbard’s culinary background and her desire to introduce flavors unfamiliar to some Kansas City residents.
“The flavors, for sure,” she said of what she hopes guests take away. “I want to offer flavors they may not be familiar with. I’m trying not to change my recipes just to match what people here are familiar with when I’m trying to offer something they’ve never tried.”
Hubbard’s professional background includes bartending and food styling in Thailand. She trained under a mentor whose bar earned recognition among Asia’s top cocktail destinations, an experience that shaped her attention to technique and presentation.
When she arrived in Kansas City, she quickly recognized what she viewed as a missing niche.
“There was no Asian craft cocktail bar in this city,” she said.
That realization led to years of pop-ups, where the Hubbards introduced Moon Bar cocktails at businesses around Kansas City while building an audience and refining the concept. This month’s opening marked the end of that transitional phase.
“Before this, we were always doing monthly pop-ups, changing locations every month,” Hubbard said. “Now we are here to stay.”
The permanent location also reflects the partnership between the couple.
Saranya Hubbard serves as the creative force behind the menus and overall concept, while her husband helped physically bring the vision to life.
“He’s the muscle, while I am the brain,” Hubbard said. “Anything about this brick and mortar that I visualized, he made it happen.”
Financial hurdles, permitting requirements and the lengthy liquor licensing process made getting to opening night difficult, she said. As a small independent business without outside financial backing, simply meeting city requirements proved one of the most difficult parts of the process.
“Financial, for sure,” Hubbard said when asked about the biggest challenge. “We are just small people, not coming from rich families.”
Support from the community
Still, the crowd that filled Moon Bar on opening night suggested the wait had built anticipation.
As guests settled into the dimly lit room with cocktails in hand and the energy of the lion dance still lingering, the opening represented both an ending and a beginning.
Wednesday’s opening drew supporters from across Kansas City’s growing Asian business community, including Café Cà Phê owner Jackie Nguyen, whose nearby business has become a central part of the neighborhood’s evolving identity and Madoka Koguchi, founder of Japanese nonprofit Yukari KC.
Neighboring businesses such as Café Cà Phê, Hella Good Deeds, Vietnam Cafe, Lilly Floral Collective and Dear Donna are contributing to what Hubbard sees as a more connected district where businesses support one another rather than compete.
Hubbard said she sees Moon Bar and Tian as part of a broader cultural shift in Columbus Park, where Asian-owned businesses have become increasingly visible.
“It benefits me a lot, for sure, that people really want to know more about us,” she said. “The more community we have, the stronger we are too.”
