Café Corazón Opening Second Location in Crossroads

By Kevin Collison

Café Corazón is bringing its Hispanic heart to the Crossroads, planning to open a second location at 110 Southwest Boulevard within the next two months.

The family-run café, which offers espresso drinks and foods with a Latinx flavor, is expanding from its current quarters at 1721 Westport Rd. that opened two years ago.

Miel Castagna-Herrera, who along with her husband Curtis Herrera and daughter Dulcinea Herrera, operate the café, said the new location brings their business even closer to its roots.

“It felt like we were embraced by the Westport community and the Latinx community as a whole,” she said.

“The Crossroads is close to the Westside, one of the reasons to open this new location was to be closer to the people we’re representing. We’re also into the arts.”

The Crossroads Café Corazón location will be at 110 Southwest Blvd. next door to ArtsKC.

Miel is of Argentinian ancestry and Curtis’ family background is Mexican and Apache. The couple lived in Kansas City for several years in the early 2000s, moved to Taos, New Mexico for a period and then returned here seven years ago.

“We love Kansas City and it’s definitely our home,” she said.

The Westport cafê features furnishings made by her husband and artwork by her daughter. The lovely mural on the outside of the building of a Latino woman embracing her heart, corazón in Spanish, was done by two Dreamers, Isaac Tapia and Rodrigo Alvarez.

All will be contributing to the new Crossroads location which will at 3,000 square feet, will be a larger space than the Westport address.

The Westport location features artwork by Dulcinea Herrera and furnishings made by Curtis Herrera.

“Our new location will be similar but we’re also going to focus a bit on mestizo and indigenous forms of being Latino,” Miel said.

That focus on the flavors of different Latin American regions will include espresso and coffee drinks, yerba mate, smoothies, chocolate, chilis, blue corn, toasts, Argentinian sweets, empanadas, tamales and pastries.

The new Crossroads location also wants to showcase Latinx and indigenous artists and plans to be an active participant in First Fridays.

Hours are expected to be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends, with expanded times on First Fridays.