She hopes to open a coffee shop in her historic Wichita home. But she’s starting smaller.
In the future, Wichita could be enjoying a stylish coffee shop set up on the ground floor of a historic local Queen Anne Victorian.
But for now, entrepreneur Lydia Mettee is dreaming a little smaller.
Mettee, who lives in the Monroe-Mahan house at 1357 S. Broadway, is in the process of planning a new coffee shop, which she hopes to have open by the end of the year.
The shop, which will be called Dapper Cat Coffee, will be located somewhere on Wichita’s south central side. One of her main goals with the shop, Mettee said, is to add something special to her adopted neighborhood.
“I want to focus on bringing positivity to the area,” she said. “South Broadway is an area that’s not known for being a very positive space.”
She’s considering properties now, and she’s focused her search on the area that stretches from Kellogg to Pawnee and from the Arkansas River to Hydraulic.
Mettee said she moved to the neighborhood about six years ago when she and her father bought the historic house, built in 1887 and used as a parsonage for 10 years. She got involved with a nonprofit group in the neighborhood called The Neighboring Movement, and it inspired her to want to help improve the area.
Mettee, who was able to acquire some Mead’s Corner’s equipment when it closed, said she’s always dreamed of opening her own coffee shop. She just finished taking business classes with Create Campaign Inc., an organization that assists urban entrepreneurs, and is now ready to move toward opening the shop.
Her ultimate goal is to run the coffee shop out of the ground floor of her home, which sits next door to Hamilton Middle School, but she first wants to start in a temporary space in the area to see if the business is accepted by the community. If it is, the move to the house could happen in the next two to three years.
Dapper Cat will serve a full line of espresso drinks, she said, and its secondary purpose will be staging community-building events that feature local bands or artists who live in the neighborhood.
She named the shop after her “big fat black cat” Romeo, who has a half mustache and looks rather dapper, Mettee said.
Stay tuned for developments with Dapper Cat Coffee.
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