Kansas City’s Monarch Coffee is closing its two shop locations by the end of the month

Monarch Coffee in Kansas City will be closing its two brick and mortar locations in midtown and Crown Center.

The shops’ last day will be Sunday Oct. 30. The beloved coffeehouse was founded by husband and wife Tyler and Jaime Rovenstine, who announced the closure on the cafe’s Instagram page on Thursday.

The announcement said the pandemic had a significant impact on the business, which prompted the owners to think about what they wanted the future to look like for their family and make the decision to close.

“The pandemic rocked our industry, and although we survived through the worst of it, we cannot gloss over how hard it was on us,” the Instagram post reads.

In its eight years of operation, Monarch Coffee was able to open two locations and offer wholesale coffee through its online store.

The first location, which opened in 2017, was a 1,731-square-foot renovated space in the Ambassador building at 3560 Broadway. The second location opened at the 2345 Grand Blvd. office building across from Washington Square Park.

With Jaime serving as creative director and Tyler serving as a coffee specialist and head of operation, Monarch has garnered praise at the local, regional and national level. In 2022 alone, the coffee shop earned best coffee shop in Missouri by Food & Wine Magazine and best coffee shop in the Midwest by Midwest Living.

“We opened Monarch because we were excited to create a new kind of coffee space in Kansas City,” the Instagram post reads. “We are so incredibly proud of the company we created, the team we built, and all that we offered to the community.”

Monarch will continue taking online coffee orders and farewell merchandise after the two brick and mortar locations close at the end of the month.

Includes reporting by The Star’s Joyce Smith.