Coffee shop expands to create homey feel

A new local coffee shop is expanding and remodeling to offer a relaxing place to unwind, refuel and recharge.

On the northeast corner of the square sits Sweet Espressions, a new coffee shop and café owned by mother and daughter Sherry Stacey and Sarah Mitchell. Though still under construction, Sweet Espressions offers coffee drinks and light fare to customers looking for a break.

Mitchell and her mother — who owns Hidden Treasures, a resale shop less than a block away — are expanding the café’s seating into the space currently occupied by The Vintage Book Shoppe next door. The bookstore, meanwhile, will move into Hidden Treasures, Mitchell said. Stacey and Mitchell are converting Vintage Book Shoppe’s basement into a study lounge for students, complete with a fireplace and board games. A small conference room in the back offers a place for groups to meet, and soon the café also will offer a coffee and spice shop and an area to watch the cooks prepare the food.

The café’s history begins long before its actual opening this June. Mitchell worked as the manager for restaurant Upper East Side, which was located in the same space as the new café. When he closed the restaurant, owner Don Kangas, who also owned Manhattan Café and Bakery, decided to retire and close Upper East Side as well. Mitchell said she took advantage of that opportunity.

“We wanted to create a place that felt like home,” she said. “Whether that is someone just having a bad day that wants to come here and settle down, have a cup of coffee, relax, or a student who misses home can pretend they’re going to Aunt Martha’s house.”

Mitchell said the café offers three varieties of wraps and soon will offer a fourth, as well as a homemade soup of the day. A vintage ice-cream maker sits on the corner outside the shop, complete with a miniature John Deere tractor engine and wooden barrel. Mitchell said she found the machine on Ebay from a seller in Georgia, and “drove down in a truck with bad brakes through the mountains in a tornado,” to get it. The machine’s loud, explosive gusts every other second attract curious visitors, she said.

Kirksville resident Sandy Lammers said it is the homemade ice cream that keeps her coming back.

“She makes it with good, fresh ingredients and real fruit,” Lammers said. “Nothing’s fake, no fake flavoring. I think it’s probably one of the healthiest ice creams you can eat, if ice cream can be healthy.”

Owning a café is nothing new for Mitchell’s mother, Stacey, who said Hidden Treasures used to include a café on its second floor about five or six years ago.

“It was well received by those who would find the stairs to go up there, but I had a lot of people who either didn’t want to or couldn’t,” she said. “It really limited our productivity, and so having this opportunity brought back the café environment plus the opportunity to work with my daughter.”

Despite the many other coffee shops in Kirksville, Mitchell said business has been good. Mitchell, a business owner and member of the Kirksville Downtown Improvement Committee  which suggests plans for downtown development, said she was excited to see a new expansion and didn’t want a corner business to sit vacant.

“[The coffee shops] all have a different flavor, and it improves commerce,” she said. “It gives people another choice, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”