Kansas City Reading Coves – Javanaut
My living room couch is nice. My bed is comfy and relaxing. But the outside world is a too-neglected source of reading coves. A book can be influenced by its context. In the same way a vacation is as much about the promise of temporary joblessness as it is about the destination environment, reading is as much about the book as it is about the break from the normal domestic setting.
With that, I bring you the first installment of a hopefully long-lived series: Kansas City Reading Coves.
When I can, I like my reading retreats like my Mormons: welcoming and concernedly friendly.
Today’s cove: Javanaut – 1615 W 39th St, Kansas City, Missouri 64111
Right away, I have to say that I liked this place better when it was The Crave Cafe. The main difference between the former and the current establishment is the comparative sterility of the latter. The Crave was a outcast’s dream, with crazy wall paint, art hanging everywhere, and a staff that didn’t mind being a little bitchy if they had to. Javanaut is unfortunately cleaned up, but still it ranks among the best cozeries in the city. This place, literally a converted residential house, maintains the structure’s inherent warmth and comfort.
Get a spot upstairs if you can. The living room style chairs are only slightly less comfortable than similar chairs below, but the lack of speakers and music (meaning: the relative quiet) makes up for the comparative discomfort.
The food selection is small, mostly just pastries and cookies, but if you come here to read, chances are you don’t want a book full of crumbs anyway. The coffee drinks above average, and the lack of sugary syrups makes drinking a bit easier on the body. If you come here for coffee, you’re actually getting coffee.
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| That’s my upstairs chair to the left. I swear if I catch you in that chair I will politely pretend I don’t care. Fair warning. | My book/chair arm/room shot. I try to cram as much into this photo as possible. |
Rankings out of 10:
| Smoking accommodations | 5 | A large front porch = good. No protection from the rain or sun = bad. Smoke-able only on the clearest days. |
| Furniture comfort | 7 | A mix of soft lounge style chairs and hardbacked table chairs. |
| Quiet level | 8 | Upstairs is usually quieter than the ground level. Bring headphones to help. |
| Temperature comfort | 7 | Things trend on the cold side, but overall the temperature is not a deal-breaker |
Cool idea, Caleb. You should at least get a free coffee for this, yeah?
[…] Tour in support of Charactered Pieces: stories which took me all the way from my living room to the Javanaut coffeehouse on 39th street and everywhere in between with wireless internet access. Oh, the groupies. But that’s for […]