This Wichita food truck is adding a cafe inside a historic former fire station
After six years of rolling around Wichita distributing caffeinated goodness, a popular Wichita coffee truck is adding a brick-and-mortar space.
Kate Hutchens, who in the fall of 2014 opened her Sunflower Espresso coffee bus, will soon have a cafe space with a small dining room and a walk-up window inside of Fireworx Wichita. The office and co-working space opened in March, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began, inside the old Fire Engine Station No. 2 building at 500 S. Topeka.
Hutchens and her new business partner, Michelle Barrett, say they hope to have the little cafe open by late December or early January. They’ll keep the coffee bus going as well.
“We had been looking for a little space for a while,” Hutchens said. “We’re getting to the point in our business where we couldn’t be in multiple places at once, and we really wanted a home base.”
The cafe, which is taking over a space that was once the fire chief’s office, will have about 450 feet on the ground floor of the 16,000 square-foot building, which is occupied by Jaco General Contractor and several other small businesses.
It will have a small dining room with bar seating against the wall that the public will have access to. It will also have a walk-up window facing Topeka and another indoor walk-up window that can be used by the workers who occupy Fireworx.
Sunflower Espresso’s space has another unique feature: an original fire pole that connects to the second floor, though it’s just for decoration — not for use.
Hutchens and Barrett say they’ll keep the shop open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays through Fridays to start, and if there’s demand, they’ll add Saturdays. They’ll offer their full menu of coffee and espresso drinks plus pastries and cookies.
The duo has been frequently parking the bus in front of the Fireworx space over the last few months and has done well there, Hutchens said. The new space will allow their fans to find them even when the bus isn’t out.
“It won’t be like a treasure hunt every time,” she said.
In 2018, Commerce Street Development Partners LLC paid $100,000 to take over the fire house, built in 1930, and redevelop it. It offers 16 semi private suites and five private offices that can be rented on a month-to-month basis.
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 1:18 PM with the headline "This Wichita food truck is adding a cafe inside a historic former fire station."
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