A new coffee shop, which prides itself on taking a simple approach to coffee drinks and cocktails, has opened in Overland Park.
Driving the news: Bear Necessities Coffee Bar was launched by owner Spencer Hanson with a soft opening earlier this summer in the Library Center Shops.
Where exactly: Located at 9609 W. 87th. St., the new coffee shop took over the former event space of Stagecoach Tavern, which closed in 2020 due to pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic.
- “This particular area I feel like was kind of an odd little dead space,” Hanson said. “You have downtown Overland Park, which has Homer’s and Parisi, and then we have Black Dog Coffeehouse on the Lenexa side, but you have to go over U.S. 69 and I-35 to get there.”
- Hanson said he wanted to offer the surrounding neighborhood a more local option outside of the large, chain coffee shops located nearby, such as Scooter’s Coffee.
Background: After working in the Kansas City coffee industry for 15 years, Hanson said he felt compelled to open his own coffee bar after being laid off in the middle of the pandemic.
- “It gave me the ability to reset and to just sit with myself and say, ‘What do I want to do?'” he said. “And it just kept coming back that I think it’s time to open the shop.”
- Through an online Kickstarter fundraising campaign, Hanson was able to raise $11,100 to help with the opening of the shop.
- Prior to opening Bear Necessities, he worked at several notable coffee shops around the Kansas City metro, including Groundhouse Coffee and POUR Coffeehouse.
Key quote: “One of the big focuses of Bear Necessities is to be a community place where anybody and everybody can come in,” Hanson said. “I want this to be a place where people can develop relationships and community and feel loved when they walk in the door.”
The menu: Bear necessities sells coffee, cocktails, wine and beer, but is unique in that it only has two to three house-made syrups at a time to flavor its Colorado-based Huckleberry Coffee.
- “I wanted to bring simplicity back to what the specialty coffee world is,” Hanson said. “A lot of shops are doing just a bunch of different things and their menus are big. I really wanted to dial it back to the quality of the coffee and the craft of it.”
- Made with local ingredients, the shop’s current syrup flavors are rosemary vanilla, spice brown sugar and pumpkin caramel.
What else: For its adult beverages, Bear Necessities gets its beer, wine and liquor from The Bottle Shop in downtown Overland Park.
- The coffee shop also features baked goods from Heirloom Bakery & Hearth in Kansas City.
The future of Bear Necessities Coffee Bar
When looking to the future, Hanson said he is hoping to continue to embrace the surrounding community that has been supportive of Bear Necessities since the space first opened in July.
- Plans are in the works to host several watch parties at the space for the Chiefs and other local sporting events.
- Hanson said he would also like to incorporate live music nights at the coffee shop sometime in the future.
