A new café and bar has opened on the ground floor of 929 Residences in downtown Kansas City, bringing a rare coffee brand, a late-night drink menu and a bit of historic-building revival to the 900 block of Walnut Street. Remedy Cafe & Bar took over the former Spokes Coffee space and is now serving as part-eatery, part watering hole, part caffeination station for the surrounding apartment community and neighborhood.
Founder Aaron Chick, who developed the concept with business partner Carter Jozsa, has been dreaming about a spot like this for a while. “It’s always been my dream,” Chick told the Kansas City Star. The new business is located inside 929 Residences at 929 Walnut St., and it marks the first Kansas City-limits location to pour Onyx Coffee, an Arkansas-based roaster that the Star notes became the world’s first coffee shop to earn a James Beard Award finalist nod in the Outstanding Bar category. “We’ve got some of the best coffee in the city. I’m so excited,” Chick said.
What's On the Menu Right Now
For now, Remedy is keeping things caffeinated. The café is serving cold brew for $4.75, an Aeropress pour for $6.50, espresso for $3.50, a cortado for $4, a cappuccino for $5.25 and a mocha for $6, according to the same report. Food options include chicken salad sandwiches, hummus, pastries, jam and burrata toast, alongside rotating salads, sandwiches and other bites.
Remedy is open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays to start, with those hours expected to expand in 2027, the outlet reports. Coffee is coming first, with alcohol to follow: the bar plans to begin serving alcoholic beverages after Jan. 1, 2027, and its late-night menu is expected to lean on coffee-style drinks even after the bar side opens. Any alcohol service would fall under the city’s standard rules, since Kansas City requires alcohol-related businesses within city limits to obtain the proper licenses and follow regulations pertaining to their business, according to the City of Kansas City.
A Historic Building Gets New Life
Remedy sits inside 929 Residences, a 44-unit apartment complex that also includes a gym and a resident lounge, according to Fox4KC. The station reported the project’s grand opening took place Tuesday, and framed it as one of many redevelopment efforts downtown Kansas City has seen over the past three decades. Fox4KC also reported that Exact Architects purchased the building in 2024, when most of it sat vacant.
Exact Architects carried out the redevelopment, with Caleb Buland serving as the firm’s managing partner. Sources disagree on exactly how old the building is: the Star reports 929 Residences occupies a building constructed in 1922, while Startland News reports the seven-story brick structure went up in 1922 for the Kansas City Title & Trust Co. — and the property’s own site, at929.com, describes the building as originally the Kansas City Title & Trust, District 10, dating to 1914.
Tax Credits Helped Fund the Overhaul
The project leaned on public incentives to pencil out. State and federal tax credits helped enable the redevelopment, the Star reported, giving new life to the aging building. The Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City described the effort as preserving a historic part of the central business district while adding new residents and commercial activity, saying that combination “adds vibrancy to the growing neighborhood,” according to EDCKC.
Cost estimates for the rehab also vary by source. The Star reported an $11 million renovation inside Title & Trust Company, while Startland News put the rehabilitation of 929 Walnut at $11.2 million, proceeding under an LCRA redevelopment agreement signed in 2024.
For Chick, the numbers matter less than what the space becomes for the neighborhood. “We’re gonna build a community behind this place, and it’s gonna be something truly unique, like truly special in Kansas City,” he said, per the Star’s report.
