After seven years of serving up sweet treats in Overland Park, a locally-owned bakery and cafe is heading north.
Mud Pie Bakery, known for its wide array of vegan baked goods and coffee drinks, closed its doors at 7319 W. 95th St. on Wednesday.
But it won’t be gone for long. The bakery’s next chapter will begin in a few weeks, in a new space in Mission.
Mud Pie Bakery will be at 6850 Johnson Drive
- The bakery is moving into a space just off Johnson Drive and Barkley Street, wedged between Wingstop and Italian eatery Avelluto’s.
- Bakery chain Nothing Bundt Cakes previously occupied that space, until the bakery relocated to Kansas City, Missouri.
- Mud Pie previously operated from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. But once it reopens, the owners say they hope to expand those hours.
The new location will bring new offerings
Co-owner William Sims said the move will give Mud Pie the opportunity to start trying some new things. For one, that means the bakery’s new Mission location will branch out into serving more French pastries such as danishes, puff pastries and croissants.
“I definitely think elevating ourselves a little bit is going to be one of the most exciting things for me,” Sims said. “The vegan community in Kansas City has blown up, and there are tons of places you can get (vegan) baked goods and coffee with milk alternatives to dairy. I want to see what we can do with the things that aren’t currently provided.”
The new location will also offer some new sustainability-focused features (including serving drinks in glass jars) and new baking mixes, including a gluten-free mix.
If all goes well, Sims said, customers will be able to purchase those mixes in-store as well and take them home to bake on their own.
Mud Pie will also move away from serving espresso drinks, but customers will still be able to grab beverages like teas and cold brews.
As for the shop itself, Valverde said the goal is cozy yet colorful. The walls have been painted a dark turquoise, and once it’s open, the space will be filled with lots of plants as well.
“We’re kind of going maximalist with a lot of texture and color drenching and lots of plants,” she said. “It’s definitely a smaller seating area, but we’re also going to have a lot of things that will make it really easy to grab your stuff and go.”
Mud Pie originally got its start in 2011
Nearly 15 years ago, Valverde initially opened Mud Pie in Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband, Michael Valverde, and her parents, John and Sharon Hughes.
The family added co-owner William Sims a few years later, and it’s been a team of five ever since.
As vegans themselves, Ashley said, she and her husband couldn’t find a place in the metro area to grab a sweet treat that aligned with their diet. As it turned out, others in the community felt the same.
“I thought we’d mainly be a coffee shop with some baked goods, but the bakery part really blew up,” she said.
Mud Pie expanded with the Overland Park location — its first Johnson County spot — in 2017, which later became Mud Pie’s only location when the Kansas City spot closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In its nearly 15 years overall serving the Kansas City metro area, Valverde said, the gap that she and her team aimed to fill has managed to close quite a bit.
With the bakery’s new location, she said, she’s hoping Mud Pie can continue to offer something novel to its customers.
“When we opened, we saw that there weren’t many options,” she said. “Now we see that there are more options, so we want to keep growing and expanding, and that’s exciting. Doing this for so long, we’re kind of able to look at what we’ve done, what works and what hasn’t, and grow from there.”
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