A now-deleted TikTok video calling a stretch of Troost Avenue “scary” and Oddly Correct Coffee “demonic” backfired spectacularly this week, as Kansas City residents flooded the shop in a show of support that tripled its usual Monday business. Lines for the cafe's canned coffee drinks stretched to 45 minutes on Monday, September 28, as customers turned a dismissive review into a rallying moment for the historic corridor.
The video, which praised the cafe's lattes while framing its Troost Avenue location and appearance in disparaging terms, sparked immediate backlash once local viewers caught wind of the comments, according to FOX4 News Kansas City. Mike Schroeder, a co-owner of Oddly Correct Coffee, told KCTV that “yesterday was probably about three times as busy as a Monday would have been,” describing the surge as a direct response to community members who saw the online video and showed up in person.
Schroeder said the extra work behind the counter was worth it. He told the station that Oddly Correct aims to have a net positive impact on its neighborhood, and he used the moment to encourage customers to spread that same support to other businesses along Troost Avenue and the surrounding area rather than concentrating it all on one shop.
Neighboring Businesses Joined the Push
The community response wasn't limited to customers showing up on their own. Anchor Island Coffee, located a block away on Troost Avenue, publicly urged Kansas City residents to visit Oddly Correct in solidarity rather than treating the neighboring cafe as competition, per a Facebook post from the business. The gesture reflected a broader instinct among Troost Avenue merchants to close ranks when the corridor itself comes under attack.
From Wholesale Roaster to Troost Avenue Landmark
Oddly Correct's roots go back to 2008, when illustrator Gregory Kolsto founded it as a small wholesale roasting operation, according to VoyageKC. The business opened its first retail shop on Main Street in June 2011, in a space converted from a former payday loan office, and Schroeder joined shortly after that cafe debut. In late 2021, the company relocated to 4141 Troost Avenue to consolidate its roasting plant and retail cafe under one roof, the outlet reports.
That move wasn't without friction. When Oddly Correct first announced its plans to relocate to Troost Avenue in early 2021, the news sparked local discussion among community leaders and existing merchants about gentrification, business equity, and inclusion along the corridor, as reported by Kansas City Magazine. Neighboring Black-owned businesses at the time stressed the importance of engaging existing residents rather than simply expanding into the neighborhood.
The cafe has long been recognized as a pioneer of Kansas City's “third wave” coffee movement, known for light-roast single-origin beans, hand-pulled pour-overs, and custom letterpress packaging, according to Kansas City Magazine. It also gained early notoriety for a strict no-cream, no-sugar policy that has since been softened. Today, the shop runs an eco-friendly to-go program in which customers pay a $1 deposit for reusable glass jars that can be refunded or exchanged on future visits, per MIKCexplore.
Why Troost Avenue Comments Cut Deep
The sting behind the viral video's language is rooted in Troost Avenue's history as Kansas City's most infamous racial and economic dividing line. Known as the “Troost Divide,” the boundary was shaped by 20th-century restrictive housing covenants, municipal zoning, and federal redlining policies that explicitly barred Black residents from obtaining home loans west of the street, according to KCUR.
That legacy has fueled ongoing efforts to reshape the corridor's identity. In June 2022, local business leader Chris Goode led a civic proposal to rename the 10.7-mile stretch “Truth Avenue,” addressing its namesake, 1850s Kansas City physician Benoist Troost, who owned six enslaved people, KCUR reported.
A Corridor in the Midst of Investment
The reaction to Oddly Correct lands amid a wave of continued investment along Troost Avenue. Just this month, the Veterans Community Project opened a $2M Welcome Center at 8825 Troost Avenue to serve unhoused veterans, sitting adjacent to a campus of 49 tiny homes, according to KCTV. Other recent projects include a $5 million laundromat redevelopment at the old 63rd and Troost Walgreens site and the community cafe Thelma's Kitchen pausing service to plan its next chapter.
For Schroeder and his neighbors, the events of the past few days reinforced something simpler than any redevelopment plan: that Kansas Citians will show up for the businesses that call Troost Avenue home. As he put it to KCTV, the goal now is to keep that energy flowing to the rest of the corridor's small businesses, not just the one that happened to go viral.
