In late September, two young customers posted a TikTok review of Oddly Correct, a local coffee shop in Kansas City, Missouri.
“It was a little scary driving here,” one girl said in the video, which has since been deleted. “It felt demonic in there. Everything about it just felt demonic.”
“And weird paintings all over the walls,” the other girl added.
Before they had even tasted their coffee, they said that they “will not be back!”
The video eventually made its way to Oddly Correct co-owner Mike Schroeder, after an employee added it to a work group chat.
“We just were like, ‘Oh my gosh, what a wild take!’” Schroeder told TODAY.com.
Oddly Correct’s walls are filled with colorful and surreal paintings, all made by friends and local artists.
“We just kind of joked around, like, ‘Oh man, October’s coming up. We should just really lean into being demonic,’” he said. “Obviously, it upsets me just because of where those assumptions are coming from, but like in general, we didn’t really think much of it.”
CJ The Alchemist, a Kansas City-based influencer with 70,000 followers, shared his two cents in a TikTok video posted on September 26.
“Anytime somebody says that Troost Avenue is scary, it probably just means that they’re not used to seeing Black folks walking up and down the sidewalks, taking public transportation,” the content creator said.
The neighborhoods along Troost Avenue — now widely known as one of the city’s most prominent racial and economic dividing lines — have historically been subject to segregation.
Before desegregation, Lincoln High School and its feeder junior high schools east of Troost were the only post-elementary schools for Black students.
To this day, neighborhoods to the east of Troost Avenue are still largely made up of Black households, and neighborhoods to the west are predominantly white — and more affluent.
“Troost Avenue is not that scary,” CJ said in the video, which has garnered over 1.2 million views. “This is your sign to go take a trip to Oddly Correct.”
After the influencer’s video, Schroeder said the shop’s sales increased by nearly 200%.
Jackie Nguyen, owner of the nearby Vietnamese restaurant Cafe Cà Phê, came out to show her support — and to film the experience for her Instagram followers.
“We obviously are here because we saw a little video online that we wanted to address,” Nguyen said, noting there was a line out the door.
“Those girls are obviously very young,” Nguyen’s employee, Lex, added. “I feel like maybe they don’t live in Kansas City, maybe they’re on the outskirts, maybe in Johnson County or something. And maybe they just don’t have much exposure to diverse areas … which is almost kind of sad.”
In the video, Nguyen and Lex sipped their respective coffee orders — a bourbon vanilla iced latte and a sweet potato latte with macadamia milk — and offered some advice.
“Troost is an amazing street, and Oddly is an amazing business,” Nguyen said. “I really wanted to show two young girls what you could have done instead and also give you an opportunity to take a breath before you post something. Also, maybe think a little bit.”
“I wanted to welcome you both to show that there are places on Troost, not just Oddly, that are amazing,” she continued.
“They’re amazing places on Troost that not only feel amazing to us, but provide a sense of belonging, a sense of safety, a sense of diversity. We are poking fun,” she emphasized. “We are not trying to bully. We just wanted to take an opportunity to give a little bit of grace and kindness in this, mainly because it shows to me, you just don’t have exposure to a lot of it.”
Schroeder echoed Nguyen’s sentiments.
“When someone says that Troost is scary, we have an idea of why they’re saying that,” Schroeder said.
“We have a lot of people who do, like, spend their lives in this area and love it and felt a need to stand up and say, ‘This is where I live. This is my home, and it’s not scary.’”
Schroeder said one of the young girls in the video reached out to him to apologize. Still, he’s looking forward, not back.
“We’re sort of steeling ourselves to be ready for another big bump this weekend, but it’s tapered off a little bit, you know,” Schroeder said. “Our team is so talented and experienced, and even our younger staff are mature for their age, so they’re all handling it so well, jumping in to help out.”
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Featured Image: Courtesy of Mike Shroeder
