Café Ollama

Café Ollama is a family-run, Mexican-owned coffee shop at 523 Southwest Blvd on the western edge of the Crossroads, where Lesley Reyes and Francisco Murguía Jr. serve traditional Mexican coffee — most famously café de olla, steeped with cinnamon, star anise, and piloncillo. The shop opened in March 2021 inside a storefront that, until the pandemic, was a terminal for El Conejo, a bus line running between Kansas City and Mexico — and Reyes frames the café as a deliberate act of keeping Mexican culture visible on a fast-gentrifying Southwest Boulevard.

Description

Café Ollama is a Mexican-owned coffee shop specializing in traditional Mexican coffee preparations, anchored by café de olla — coffee steeped with cinnamon, star anise, and piloncillo (unrefined cane sugar), which Reyes describes as “a morning tradition among grandmothers in rural Mexico.”¹ The piloncillo is sourced directly from Mexico, and the coffee itself is sourced from Chiapas.² The menu has grown to include the shop’s signature coffee “flights” and “buckets” alongside Mexican pastries, and the space is decorated with vibrant prints from Hispanic artists.²³

The name “Ollama” is a play on words: it is short for ōllamaliztli, the Mesoamerican ballgame — a nod to co-owner Francisco Murguía’s love of soccer — while also echoing olla, the clay pot used to brew café de olla.² (Locally the shop is read aloud as “Oh-yah-má.”⁴)

The café opened in March 2021 and built a loyal following quickly; in 2024 it was named the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City (HCCKC) Best Small Business.⁴

Ownership and history

Period	Operator / use
through ~2010	Record store (building)
2010	Irma Hernández (Reyes’ mother) acquires the building, hand-picked by the previous record-store owner1
2016 → 2020	Storefront used as a terminal for El Conejo, a bus line running Kansas City ⇄ Mexico; service ended when the border closed at the start of the pandemic1
March 2021 → present	Café Ollama — Lesley Reyes & Francisco Murguía Jr.15

Café Ollama is owned and operated by Lesley Reyes and her husband Francisco Murguía Jr. Reyes is a makeup artist by trade and Murguía a soccer coach; the couple grew up in Kansas City and, after stints living and working in Chicago, Los Angeles, and abroad, returned to KC to raise their son.¹² When the pandemic disrupted both of their careers in 2020, they took the leap into the coffee shop, motivated by the conviction that Kansas City “needs and deserves” a Latin coffee shop representing their culture, flavors, and traditions.²

The building belongs to Reyes’ mother, Irma Hernández, who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico at 14 and built a career in tax preparation and notary services; she acquired the building in 2010.¹ Before becoming Café Ollama, the storefront served as a terminal for El Conejo, a bus line that ran a single route between Kansas City and Mexico — when the café first opened, Reyes recalls customers still wandering in asking for bus tickets.¹ Reyes has explicitly framed the café as a way of keeping Mexican culture visible — not “hidden” — on a Southwest Boulevard and West Side that have gentrified rapidly, with rising housing prices and newer luxury-leaning businesses displacing longtime community members.¹

Links

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ollamakc/ — Note: the audit seed listed @cafeollama, but the shop’s active handle is @ollamakc. ⁴
• Website (ordering): https://cafe-ollama.square.site/ ⁶
• Linktree: https://linktr.ee/ollamakc ⁴
• Phone: (913) 337-5929 ⁶

See also

• crossroads-arts-district
• Registry

Sources

Footnotes

1. Madeline Fox, “Ollama Isn’t Just A Coffee Shop. It’s A Legacy Of Mexican Culture On A Changing Southwest Boulevard,” KCUR, Aug. 8, 2021. https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2021-08-08/ollama-isnt-just-a-coffee-shop-its-a-legacy-of-mexican-culture-on-a-changing-southwest-boulevard ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. “Café Ollama’s Lesley Reyes talks Latin flavors, inspirations, traditions, and what’s next,” The Pitch. https://www.thepitchkc.com/cafe-ollamas-lesley-reyes-talks-latin-flavors-inspirations-traditions-and-whats-next-in-the-pitch-questionnaire/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. “Café Ollama brings traditional Mexican coffee preparations to Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District,” Feast Magazine. https://www.feastmagazine.com/travel/kansas-city/caf-ollama-brings-traditional-mexican-coffee-preparations-to-kansas-citys-crossroads-arts-district/article_36456056-0ff8-11ec-a6f7-43cf74368622.html ↩

4. Café Ollama (@ollamakc), Instagram (bio: “Oh-yah-má”; “Home of the Flights & The Buckets”; HCCKC Best Small Business 2024). https://www.instagram.com/ollamakc/; Linktree https://linktr.ee/ollamakc ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. “Café Ollama: Latin-Inspired Coffee in the Crossroads,” IN Kansas City Magazine. https://www.inkansascity.com/eat-drink/news/cafe-ollama-latin-inspired-coffee-in-the-crossroads/ ↩

6. Café Ollama listings — Yelp (523 SW Blvd, updated Feb. 2026), https://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-ollama-kansas-city; Square ordering site, https://cafe-ollama.square.site/ ↩ ↩²