Drink This Now: Latte at Garden House Cafe

Garden House Cafe’s espresso paired well with Bread Friend’s sourdough bagel. // Photo by Sophia Lail

As I age, it’s hard to find a space that makes me feel 17 again. As someone who grew up in Kansas City, my teen years were spent sitting in the backseat of my friends’ cars and exploring the city, finding the hottest indie coffee shops and boutiques. It was the coolest thing to be able to make a day out of coffee, vintage shopping, and exploring new parts of town.

Garden House Cafe gave me that feeling all over again; the feeling of walking into a new space and being genuinely enticed. It’s been a long time since I felt my teenage self get antsy with excitement. With a mix of jewelry, stationery, vintage clothing, pottery, and plants, there’s just about something for every walk of life here. 

Now that we know the space and shopping are great, what about the food and espresso? To put it bluntly: it lives up to the hype. They keep a very simple espresso menu, with a few syrups and espresso blends. I opted for my favorite, an iced mocha with oat milk. 

After being continuously tortured by the burnt espresso of Starbucks before I knew better, I’ve become exceptionally picky. Yet, I was not disappointed. The espresso is smooth, nutty in flavor and paired well with my choice of oat milk. 

Instead of leaving a lingering bitter taste in the mouth, it felt more rich and was incredibly smooth. I didn’t feel the need to vigorously brush my teeth to get rid of that coffee mouth dryness that comes with, well, bad espresso. That’s a win in my book. The quality of all of the ingredients was commendable, with high-quality oat milk that wasn’t too oaty and a mocha sauce that was more indulgent than overpoweringly sweet.

I paired it with an everything sourdough bagel from Bread Friends, a local bagel bakery. Knowing that Garden House Cafe is the only cafe in the metro that regularly carries them, I was excited to give it a try. Not to be a diva, but I’m picky about bagels too, as they are often my special-interest choice of breakfast when I get stuck in ADHD food obsessions. 

The bagel was soft, pillowy, and a great pairing with my latte. Sometimes everything bagels are extremely overstimulating with an abundance of seasoning on the top, but there was barely any mess eating this bad boy. 

Despite having a prickly pear cream cheese (fancy!), I decided to keep it classic with some simple cream cheese. Dare I say, keeping it classic was the way to go, as it didn’t overpower the taste of the bagel and created a perfect bagel harmony. 

Not feeling a bagel? No problem; they have other bakery goods, like the homemade raspberry pop-tart I was tempted to opt for instead. 

Are you going to get a fancy, over-the-top specialty drink here? No, but dare I say, sometimes simplicity is better. Sometimes keeping a no-frills menu trumps having an abundance of syrup options.

Garden House Cafe is located at 1639 Southwest Blvd, Kansas City, KS 66103.