New cafe moving into old fire station on South Topeka, will serve coffee, breakfast, lunch
The cafe spot inside the FireWorx building at 500 S. Topeka has been empty since February, when Sunflower Espresso’s owners decided to shut down both their cafe, which they’d opened in the building in March 2021, and their mobile coffee bus, which opened in 2014.
But soon, a strange new cafe will be taking over the space — which is on the ground floor of the FireWorx coworking building in the old fire station at 500 S. Topeka — and its owners are also food truckers who decided they wanted to expand into a bricks-and-mortar spot.
In a few weeks, the owners of food trailer Paranormal Eggsperience, which hit the streets of Wichita in March 2020, will take over the space and open a coffee shop called Paranormal Cafe.
The cafe will be an offshoot of the truck, whose theme reflects the owners’ obsession with aliens, ghosts and cryptids. The truck’s menu items have names like Bigfoot Burrito, Chalupacabra, Eggsorcist, Poultrygeist and more.
Grace Doukali — who is a partner in the business with Brian Armitage and Daniel Niemeyer — said that the 400-square-foot cafe spot will serve a full menu of espresso drinks. The Paranormal Eggsperience Truck will be parked right outside the cafe on weekdays, and customers will be able to get the food trailer’s breakfast burritos, breakfast sandwiches, loaded breakfast tots and more from the truck. (The owners are working on a method where customers will be able to order both coffee and food at the same time.)
“There are some things we’re still working out,” Doukali said.
The truck has occasionally offered lunch specials in the past, but when the cafe opens, the owners plan to expand their lunch offerings.
The Paranormal Eggsperience food trailer has been a regular presence at the Kansas Grown Farmers Market at 21st and Ridge since November 2020, and the trailer will continue to serve there on Saturday mornings. That means it won’t be at the cafe that day, but Doukali said she’s planning to add several baked goods to the cafe’s menu, and those will be available on Saturday mornings.
The owners, who are friends with Sunflower Espresso’s former owners Kate Hutchens and Michelle Barrett, said they started hearing that the spot may be opening up and talked to them about taking it over. The Paranormal Eggsperience owners had long wanted to expand, and at one point, they even contemplated getting a second truck.
“Eventually, we realized that we’ve kind of plateaued with what our truck can do because we’ve been so busy, and the truck can only hold so much,” Doukali said.
They also looked at a few other brick-and-mortar spots, but nothing felt right.
“And then this happened,” Doukali said.
The owners are planning to remove the stand-up benches Sunflower Espresso put along the edges of the tiny space and add a few small tables so that people can hang out inside, talk and play board games. The space also has a decent-sized patio, which will also have seating.
The cafe’s hours will be 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. It’ll open Saturdays just for coffee and baked goods, and the owners are also contemplating adding evening hours on the weekends.
Stay tuned for an official opening day for Paranormal Cafe, which should be around the second week of May.
This story was originally published April 26, 2023 at 1:33 PM.
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