Beloved Kansas City cafe closes again: ‘We held on as long as we could’
Waldo favorite The Classic Cookie & Cafe has closed. Again.
Husband and wife Bryan Sparks and Hailey Allen, along with their friend Anthony Quirarte, took over the beloved venue in late 2021.
They spent six weeks renovating the space, reopening it as a breakfast and lunch cafe and coffeehouse.
In September, they added dinner service, Wild Rose Bistro, several nights a week. They also operated their catering and meal prep out of the spot at 409 W. Gregory Blvd.
Customers clamored for dinner at this daytime-only KC restaurant. It starts next week
“It was death by a thousand paper cuts,” Sparks said. “We’re heading into a recession. Everything is getting more expensive. The cost of eggs has gone up significantly. We held on as long as we could, and unfortunately we couldn’t keep it going anymore.”
Because he was keeping the business open as long as possible, he said his dozen employees didn’t get much advance notice on the closing. But he said they have now all signed off that they were paid what they were owed.
The Classic Cookie & Cafe got its start on the Country Club Plaza in late 1981, selling cookies fresh from the oven, such as snickerdoodles, chocolate chocolate chips, oatmeal raisin chip, and chocolate peanut butter chip.
In 1988, the Plaza location and one downtown were sold to Mrs. Fields Cookies, and The Classic Cookie relocated to its current Waldo location later that year. Leslie Stockard owned it since 1998 before selling it in 2020.
The new owners planned to take it through the pandemic and beyond. But a year later they posted a “for sale” sign on the door.
Allen grew up in the Brookside area, and the cafe’s cookies were a family tradition during the holidays. Sparks started taking Allen there for breakfast dates. Sparks had previously been executive chef at Jax Fish House House & Oyster Bar in the West Plaza.
They bought the place and remodeled it with plans to redefine the Classic Cookie for the next generation. They added a coffee bar and chef-driven menu that included crab cake Benedicts, steel cut oatmeal, savory crepes, chunky chicken salad with celery, grapes and nuts on freshly made breads, ham and cheese scones and giant cinnamon rolls.
But in the last few months, water line issues had front parking spaces shut down for days at a time, and the restaurant would also lose water service, forcing them to temporarily close. December was particularly hard with blistering cold days that kept customers tucked in at home.
“We had really good weekends. But between the catering, the meal prep, the Classic Cookie and Wild Rose, I think we were pulled in too many directions,” Sparks said.
He hopes to sell the business.
“I’m exploring a few different options and Hailey is going to take a job outside the industry so we can have a little more stability and think about starting a family,” Sparks said. “It is one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make, but in the end I think we have to do what is best for our family.”
