KANSAS CITY, Mo — After decades, you have a little over a week left to eat in the beloved Tea Room at André’s Confiserie Suisse at 50th and Main in Kansas City. If you do go for a farewell meal, René Bollier said you won’t be alone!
I sat down with Bollier, the president and executive pastry chef of André’s in the tea room where he grew up. His grandparents André and Elsbeth Bollier opened Andre’s in 1955. They came to the United States from Switzerland to open a chocolate shop. They’ve been serving delicious Swiss fare in the current location with the tea room and familiar chalet in the back since 1976.
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Bollier said they need the space to make more chocolate with their chocolate sales growing.
“We have seen such tremendous growth both locally and nationally from a chocolate perspective and we are really just out of space and so we had to make that hard decision of how we could find more space,” said Bollier. “ The tea room is such a wonderful part of the business but our main focus has always been lunch so it is an area of the business that isn’t utilized the whole day so we realized there are just better ways to use that space which is why we made that decision.”
Bollier said they’ve been talking about what to do for the last year. “The tea room used to, I mean for decades was close to fifty percent of our annual revenue, and its still such an important part, but with chocolate sales escalating so much it's become about 9 percent and now chocolate has become about 60 percent.”
Bollier not only grew up learning the family business, he said he also spent three years training in Switzerland.
Customers started filling the tea room while I was there on a Wednesday morning. Amelia McIntyre was there on her first of two farewell meals to remember a dear friend who has since passed.
“She loved to come here and we’d have breakfast and share a slice of quiche and she was a very special person, so it brings up those memories of people in the past,” she said. She’ll be coming back Saturday morning too. “There are many memories here. Even my sons now 37 and 32, sometimes we’d come for lunch.”
“It really means so much to us and so many other people,” said Bollier. “Believe me, I’ve sat in this space many nights the last few months just thinking how bittersweet the situation is.”
It’s important to note that you will still be able to get full service dining at André’s but it will be condensed mostly to the front of their building. Bollier said you’ll still be able to order his grandfather’s recipe for Quiche Lorraine or their Chicken Vol Au Vent. You only have until August 17th however to eat in the tea room.
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