From grocery store to kombucha lounge to, now, Kansas City’s first anime and gaming bar

Last year it was a grocery store. Earlier this year it became a kombucha lounge.

Now, Kortney Lee has transformed the Crossroads space he leases at 640 E. 18th St. into Otaku Lounge, an anime and gaming bar.

“We specialize in video games,” said Erick Ramos, who is partnering with Lee on the venture. “There are thousands installed on our consoles: Nintendo-branded, Playstation, Xbox. It is ridiculous how many games we have.”

For the last four years, Ramos has run an events group called Kaizen KC, which organizes themed pop-ups at bars and other spaces around the city. Kaizen also works with conventions like Planet Comicon and KC Retro. The group has a reputation locally for specializing in anime-themed events.

With Otaku Lounge, those parties have a permanent home.

In addition to video games, this geek paradise features anime films playing on flat screen TVs, trading card game nights for fans of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon, and Weeb Wednesdays, when customers who arrive in cosplay outfits receive special discounts on drinks and food.

The food menu includes chili cheese dogs, pizza and, soon, ramen.

And the ghost of Tea-Biotics Kombucha Lounge, which closed to make way for Otaku Lounge, still haunts the place. Customers can order a wide variety of kombucha mixed drinks (both cocktails and mocktails) as well as beer, wine, and traditional cocktails.

“Kombucha is still our specialty,” Ramos said. “A lot of people come in and aren’t really used to it. Then we give them a kombucha drink that tastes just like root beer and they can’t tell the difference. And from there you can mix it with alcohol. So we’re winning people over, I think.”

Otaku Lounge is open Wednesday through Saturday from 4 p.m. to midnight. It’s all-ages until 8 p.m., 21 and over after that.