Our Daily Nada is paradise for bookish boozers: Best of KC 2018

This month, we published The Pitch‘s annual Best of Kansas City issue. You can browse the results of the readers’ poll here. The issue also included a list, compiled and written by our editorial staff, of some our current favorite things about Kansas City in 2018. We’ll be publishing these items online throughout October. 

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We are pretty sure “opening a bookstore” comes either right before, or right after, “opening a bar and restaurant” on the Big List of Bad Business Ideas. But through some kind of divine transference, Andrea Baca and Amy Covitz have managed to turn two iffy ideas into a brilliant one. Our Daily Nada — the name’s a Hemingway reference — is a cafe/bar that also sells books. It opened this summer in the River Market. We are into it.

The business model actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Bookstores are having a rough go of things in the age of Amazon. Adding a new revenue stream to the old bookselling model means your life doesn’t depend on how many copies of Fear you sell. Bonus: that new revenue stream — alcohol — might help coax your customers into forking over fifteen bucks for a Ferrante paperback.

Speaking of the selection: it’s small but smart, and divvied up into little shelf-sections: Travel, Poetry, Essays and Letters, Local, Overlooked Classics, Used. And, of course, it’s a cafe, so you don’t have to buy a book every time you stop by, in which case you’re welcome to order a beer (we had a SeaQuench) or a coffee (they use Broadway beans) or some brunchlike food (avocado toast, salads, granola, things like that). The couches are cozy, the bar stools have backs, and you can roll up with a laptop at a table if you want. But, like, why? Go read a goddamn book.

Our Daily Nada, 304 Delaware. ourdailynada.com.