Coffee house serves up cool alternative for Sedalians

Click here for an audio slideshow on Table 7

It’s all about the atmosphere for many of the patrons of Table 7 Coffee House.

“You’re always welcome here. Like, I can buy something but then I can also just sit down. And there aren’t that many places where you can actually just sit down and hang out anymore,” said Nick Cobblah, a senior at Smith-Cotton High School. “You get your product, and then they rush you out of the store. Here, you can actually sit around, talk to people and actually enjoy yourself.”

Table 7 is one of the few places in Sedalia where teens and adults can come in, buy a soda and sit and relax for a few hours. The coffee house, operated by teachers Tara and Matt Clark, offers gourmet coffee, specialty sodas, snacks and sandwiches in a smoke-free atmosphere that makes young people want to linger.

Cobblah, 18, usually goes to Table 7 every night it’s open: Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

“Well, I love the atmosphere, really. I don’t know, it’s a great place to study. I usually do a lot of my homework here,” said Cobblah. “And all of my friends come, so I can hang out, get food.”

His favorite thing to eat at the coffee house is “probably the mini pizzas.” The shop also offers pretzels, mozzarella sticks, deli sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches and a line of specialty beverages.

Tara says cold drinks are more popular than the coffee.

“We sell a lot more gourmet kind of sodas, like Jones soda,” she said. “I think Wal-Mart now carries it. But we did before they did ... So, it’s kind of like our specialty. They can buy a Jones soda in a glass bottle or an IBC root beer.”

Before the building at 500 E. Fifth St. off the Katy Trail was a coffee shop, it was a bike shop.

“Most people still think we’re a bike shop. So then they’re like, ‘Oh, you don’t have bikes here. I’d say a few people wander in that way,” Tara said. “I like being at least close to downtown and in this area. I think with the (Katy) Depot and things, there’s a little bit of a rejuvenation of businesses at least in this area. I mean we’re one of the few restaurants on this side of town.”

The owners have tried to cultivate an atmosphere that invites people to come in and take a seat.

The decor features dark red walls, a couch you’d find at your grandma’s house, an antique radio and lamps that cast a warm glow. These are the kinds of things patrons expect to find at Sedalia’s version of an arty coffee house.

“I’ve told people that this is kind of a clash between your living room and a restaurant, and I think that’s the easiest way to describe it,” said Tara, an English teacher at Sedalia Middle School. “It’s a business, but it’s also a place where you want to feel at home. So it’s kind of an odd combination.”

At one table, teenagers huddle around a game of UNO. At another, they play checkers. And on the couch kids talk animatedly about the issues of the day — what went on at school.

Tara, 34, started volunteering at Table 7 when it operated behind Mazzio’s on South Limit Avenue.

“A mom and her son started it. It was kind of his idea, and she financed it,” Tara said. “I ended up helping out with decorations, booking bands and slowly and surely, they went out and I ended up taking over more.”

Eventually, Tara bought the business.

“It came to the point where she wanted to sell the building, and we didn’t wanted to buy it. Although we still wanted to run a coffee house. And during that time Matt and I got married,” she said. “And there were a few people that were concerned, ‘Oh now that you’re married you won’t want to run it.’ That really wasn’t the case. The pieces didn’t line up at that point.”

Table 7 closed for about two years while the Clarks tried to find a place to reopen.

“We’d looked downtown to kind of reopen and really didn’t find a building that was suitable at that time. Then we found our present location and it worked out,” Tara said. “A lot of renovations had already been done, and we just had to add the kitchen and create the atmosphere.”

During the time they were closed, their own social lives suffered, Matt said.

“We realized that having friends, and actually calling them and meeting them somewhere can be hard work, you know,” said Matt, a gym and health teacher at La Monte High School. “So it was like we needed to have the coffee house to have our friends show up.”

The coffee shop, Matt said, is as much about being social as it is about creating community.

“I know a lot people talk about community, and (people are) probably not very good at doing it. I think as a culture we’re probably more isolated, more Internet-driven than we used to be,” he said. “We would hate to think that people would come in, sit down next to a truly intriguing person and be totally disengaged with a great conversation or a chance to have a friend or something.

“I remember a group of high school girls. All four of them came in, and I was like, ‘Oh great, we have a group of four girlfriends,’ you know. And, within the first two minutes — they hadn’t even ordered yet — all of them pulled out their cell phones. All of them had separate texting. (There were) four conversations going on with someone else. And for half an hour they didn’t talk to each other. And I thought, ‘Man, that’s just tragic.Put ’em away. Talk to each other,’ ” he said.

The Clarks say they are filling a niche.

“I guess you could say we’re kind of geared toward teenagers, but I definitely don’t want to be exclusive,” Tara said. “But they’re at a social time in their life, and so I think they’re definitely geared toward having a place to hang out.”

The relationship that the two teachers try to build with the teens who walk through the door is different than their school ties.

“I see them during middle school. Most of the kids, they drive here. They’re in college now,” Tara said. “... I’m not asking what grade they got on their test or grading their test. I’m saying, ‘Oh what are you doing with your life?’ And it’s a little different.”

Matt likes the idea of providing an alternative hang out.

“I’m not going to say if we don’t exist, then kids are stuck at home or partying. But clearly, we’ve had kids when we closed who came to us and literally, and very seriously, said, ‘Listen, my life is not quite the same. I don’t have an option except to go out to parties. It’s not what I want to do. It’s not a safe environment. It’s not exactly who I am,’ ” he said.

“We’re not going to be their parents. At the same time, we’d like to think it’s a safe place where they’re not going to get out of control and go crazy,” Matt said

Caleb Sell, 18. a Smith-Cotton senior, said Table 7 is different from other places around town. “I mean it’s a good place to go hang out,” Sell said. Like Nick (Cobblah) said, they don’t push you out the door. They just kind of let you hang out here.”