No meat, only mushrooms: A new kind of butcher shop is coming to Kansas City

The flavors and aromas of mushrooms vary wildly, as Bryan Alley has learned over the last 15 years as a shroom enthusiast. Take the candy cap, a variety found on the West Coast.

“It smells so strongly of maple syrup and brown sugar that if I hid one in your house, you could find it,” Alley said.

At Mushroom Culture, which Alley plans to open this summer in the former Blue Koi space at 1803 W. 39th St., he’s going to use candy caps in his “chicken and waffles” — a vegetarian dish made with fried lion’s mane mushrooms and brown butter candy cap ice cream.

There will be a few other hot items on the menu at Mushroom Culture, Alley said, plus some grab-and-go options. But the main attraction will be the mushroom case.

“Think of a butcher shop, but for mushrooms,” Alley said. “We’ll have a half-dozen to a dozen different clusters of mushrooms at a time: oysters, lion’s mane, chestnuts, some foraged stuff depending on the time of year.”

Alley got into mushrooms while working as a chef at Pachamama’s in Lawrence in his mid-20s. (He’s 41 now.) The experience introduced him to fungi beyond portobello and shiitake.

“We had a lot of local stuff coming in through the door, like Chicken of the Woods and lobster mushrooms,” Alley said. “The foraged stuff really blew my mind.”

During COVID, Alley started growing his own mushrooms as a hobby. When a local mushroom supplier, Grand River Mushrooms, went out of business, Alley began selling his homegrown mushrooms to local restaurants.

He did that for about three years. But Alley was more interested in returning to cooking than being a supplier. “I’d always thought someday I’d like to open a restaurant,” he said.

Mushroom Culture, which is crowdfunding its opening through Mainvest, will be entirely vegetarian and vegan. It will have a walk-up window on 39th Street, some seating, and a bar serving mushroom coffee, tea and desserts.

After a few months of renovations inside, Alley said he hopes to be open by May or June.

“I love the area,” Alley said. “I used to get dumplings at Blue Koi. The neighborhood reminds me a lot of Lawrence, in a way. I feel like it’s the right demographic for a mushroom butcher shop.”