Review: Sunflower Outdoor and Bike, Expanded

Sunflower Outdoor and Bike Shop has been a thriving business in downtown Lawrence for almost 50 years. Recently, the bike shop decided to expand and open its own cafe in the back half of the Sunflower space: The Sunflower Cafe, which offers various sandwiches, baked goods and coffee. I ordered a grilled cheese (on focaccia bread with tomato soup), a chocolate chip cookie and a chai latte, which the Sunflower Cafe now sells from Decade, a temporarily closed coffee shop in East Lawrence. The food was all not only good but seemed to have some unique flavors, like the cherry tomato focaccia and some sort of sauce on the grilled cheese that tasted like tomato jam, and I thought that it was all great. It was all relatively inexpensive, about the same as the prices of similar businesses.

The location of the cafe was a smart decision: many Sunflower Bike Shop customers most likely will wander into the back half of the business and end up buying coffee or a pastry. The cafe seems to be able to operate as its own business, although it is located inside of Sunflower, with a door on 8th Street leading straight inside and no unavoidable interaction with customers of the bike shop. The inside is spacious and pleasant with baked goods and sandwiches on display and the back half of both the upper and lower floor of part of Sunflower for seating, complete with lots of light and plenty of places to sit.

My only complaint would be that the menu seemed a little bit lacking, but since the cafe just opened, I assume that there will be more available food and drinks before too long. Overall, I thought the cafe has lots of potential to become another well-known downtown Lawrence coffee shop: while it is still fairly new, I thought the food was really good and the Sunflower Cafe seems like a success!