It took Michaela Krueger and Luka Pivk a while to transform a former Olathe drive-in into what it is now.
Formerly a Sams Tastee Treat (and before that, a Tastee Freez in the 1960s), the space needed a lot of work before the couple could begin serving coffee drinks there. But this month, the several months of work came to fruition, with a consistent buzz of eager customers stopping by to check out the new space.
“The community has shown up in just the most amazing ways for us, that I just can’t even explain,” Krueger said.
Krueger and Pivk softly opened their new coffee shop, Dolce Caffe, at the beginning of August. After a couple of weeks of gradually phasing in more of the shop’s menu items, the couple said business has been booming.
Dolce Caffe opened at 435 S Parker St.
- The coffee shop moved into a space just off Elm and Parker streets in Olathe.
- The space had been vacant for a few years, following the closure of Sam’s Tastee Treat.
- Dolce Caffe is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday and Sunday.
Dolce Caffe is a “European-style” cafe
The shop’s menu offers a variety of coffee drinks, sourced from Austrian brand Julius Meinl.
The menu ranges from americanos and cappuccinos to flavored lattes and cold brews.
“The first thing everybody notices is the quality of the coffee itself,” Pivk said.
“(People say) they’ve never tasted a better coffee.”
In addition to coffee, Dolce Caffe also offers other items like matcha lattes and smoothies. The café also serves a variety of pastries — including a burek, which is a European layered pastry that Dolce Caffe’s owners say has been a popular choice among customers so far.
Dolce Caffe’s menu even has a nod to the building’s history — an affogato float, an “ode to Tastee Treat.”
In terms of the space itself, Krueger and Pivk enlisted the help of a few local companies to bring the vacant space back to life — some of which included Kansas City-based Epoxy Flooring and Olathe-based Deer Creek Plumbing Inc.
The couple said they hoped for the shop to reflect their own aesthetic vision once it was finally finished.
Though they know some customers will be in a hurry to grab their coffee and head back out, they also wanted Dolce Caffe to be a place where people feel like they can take a pause from their busy lives and connect with one another.
“People sitting at the bar, talking, hanging out — that’s kind of what we wanted out of this place, because that’s really (what you see) in Europe,” Pivk said. “Here (in the United States), it’s fast-paced, so we want people to kind of slow down and enjoy the coffee.”
The vision for Dolce Caffe was several years in the making
A former Olathe resident, Krueger knew the former Tastee Freez building well and had been pondering the idea of turning it into a cafe for quite a while before Dolce Caffe actually came to life.
“It’s such a gem, and I was so sad to see it empty,” she said about the building. “It just looked like it was screaming, ‘Bring me back to life.’”
As it turned out, Krueger wasn’t the only person in Olathe who envisioned a cafe in the space that had previously sold burgers and ice cream.
“Everyone (told us), ‘We’ve wanted a coffee shop here for so long, and we’re so glad that there’s a local business we can support,’” she said.
Ultimately, Krueger and Pivk said they’re looking forward to Dolce Caffe being a place where the community can slow down and connect over coffee. After all, those customers won’t be the only ones brought together by it.
Coffee is, after all, how Krueger and Pivk met. The couple first crossed paths overseas last summer, when Krueger was on vacation in Croatia and walked into the cafe where Pivk was working at the time.
Now, a year and countless cups of coffee into their own relationship, the idea of creating a place where stories like theirs could begin in their own community felt exciting to both of them. To see it all finally come together, they said, has been an emotional experience.
And as owners of Dolce Caffe, getting a chance of their own to connect with their community — that’s been a fun bonus, too.
“Conversation is what means the most to me,” Pivk said. “It’s those small things, connecting with people and talking to people. I try to treat every single customer who comes in like a friend, not just like a customer.”
Want more food and drink news? Sweets shop specializing in ‘cookie bouquets’ closes longtime Overland Park storefront
