Top 4 Free Places To Go in Wichita With Your Kids

My kids and I live in Wichita. We love doing stuff. Especially free stuff. Here’s my list of our favorite free places to go and do cool stuff.

1. PBS Childrens Education & Discovery Center. This is a thing we just discovered existed not too long ago, and we already love it. It’s a free indoor playground in town. It’s out east, right next to the AMC movie theater on Rock. The playground has sensory tubs, dramatic play, crafting, a 3D printer, free books (everyone leaves with 1 free book), and a director of education who floats around helping children and parents utilize all the cool things in the center. It’s a very cool place and one of our new favorite places to go.

2. The Wichita Art Museum. This bad boy used to cost to get in. Not anymore! It has an awesome kids play area called “The Living Room.” It also has a glass bridge with that weird blown glass that looks like coral inside of it (the kids love walking over it). There’s an outdoor art path too, but you’ll probably want to eat through all the stuff inside first. They also teach classes to kids as well. This is called Art Start. Art Start goes to Camp is the summer program, it used to be $5 but has gone up to $15 and the Buff Family is not super happy about this!

3. The Wichita Public Library. Specifically The Advanced Learning Library downtown (we call it “the big library”). It has a great outdoor playground, an indoor play area, a cheap book store (you can grab media for you and the kids for literal pennies on the dollar), a bunch of computers, building blocks, story times, cool activities (grab one of those paper fliers from the library that lists all the activities for the summer. It’ll give you everything the library does AND the city does. Lots of cool stuff. Mostly free). Plus books. Lots and lots of books too. Also movies.

4. Derby Public Library. This is a hidden gem, and technically “not in Wichita,” but we count the metro, as it’s basically just a cute little neighborhood of Wichita. You’re just a feeder town for our factories, Derby! But look at you getting a Target! You’re so cute! All right, back to why the library is cool. So, it has a GREAT indoor play area. Lots of dramatic play. Board games you can use at the library. Lego stations. Block stations. Dinosaurs. Dolls. A little play kitchen. Farm animals. It’s a legit indoor playground (like a DIFFERENT version of the PBS Kids playground in town). It also has FREE coffee for you coffee loving parents. It’s a nice machine that they pay someone to come out and fill whole coffee beans into it every so often (I forget the name of it “Jo” something, but it’s the same company Derby Public Schools use, and it’s high quality stuff…and it’s free!). It also has cool activities they do all the time for teenagers. The teenagers get a whole big room that you have to pass every time you come in, so my 5 year old is always a bit jealous that they get snacks and activities she can’t do yet, but she quickly gets over it as the indoor playground is so cool.

You also got the Sunflower App (definitely download that) that gets you into a bunch of museums, zoos, and centers that would normally cost money. I went with our top four always free places we love. Check ‘em out! You could easily burn 2 hours at any of the places on this list without the kids getting bored.

Top 4 Coffee Shops In Wichita

This has really snuck up on us, and there’s even more coffee available to Wichitans then the shops I frequent or have visited. But I’m going to speak on what I know and my list of top 4 favorites.

Number 1: The Reverie

This is probably no surprise to anyone who lives in Wichita. This place’s stuff is everywhere. If you got a local resteraunt in town that also serves coffee roasted here in Wichita, it’s going to be serving Reverie coffee. You can get their coffee at Donut Whole, Frost, Home Grown, Brickyard Brewery, Jump Start (the gas station!) and probably a bunch of other places I don’t know about. It’s good coffee.

The shop itself is that rustic hipster style. There’s an old timey bicycle with a giant front wheel hung up on the wall (that’s the logo on their Jump Start coffee too). Overall a nice clean vibe. It feels like the yuppy coffee shop and the prices reflect that. Out of all the places you can get their coffee you will pay the most for the smallest cup at the official Reverie coffee shop. That said, it is my favorite place to get work done in town. Plenty of tables, even when it’s crowded I can find a place to work. The Rye Chocolate Chip cookie is the best cookie in town. They’ve got this little oven that warms it up that looks REAL expensive. Leaves the cookie warm but still crispy. Just top notch.

Number 2: Leslie’s Coffee

This place is like the Reverie’s angry sister. She’s a little hipper, a little edgier, a little dirtier. Leslie’s has good coffee. I like the location better than the Reverie (it’s in the heart of Delano). It also has a to-die-for cookie. Leslie’s is the shortbread cookie that is always shaped in a heart with varying colored home-made frosting. Their coffee is a little cheaper than Reverie’s, but not cheap-cheap. Normal coffee shop prices instead of the inflated Reverie price. Leslie’s is big into giving back. They have a fridge for the homeless filled with food provided by community donations. The homeless also get free coffee. If you’re more into ignoring poverty and pretending the homeless don’t exist, probably not the shop for you. If you like supporting a business that makes the world a little bit better, Leslie’s is the shop for you.

Leslie’s is also into plants. There’s a lot of plants decorating the shop. It’s also got a hipster vibe (it’s a coffee-shop thing, guys), but the more dirty version. It’s got rougher edges than the Reverie, but that’s what makes it lovable. It’s the slightly poorer-man’s coffee shop, and that’s cool.

Number 3: Milkfloat

Milkfloat is firstly a dessert place, but they also do coffee. What I love about Milkfloat (other than the awesome desserts) is that it’s open late. Where I come from (I come from here…but I did live in Stillwater for a decade) coffee shops are open late. They close early around here. Reverie shuts their doors at like 4pm. Leslie’s used to stay open later, but Leslie herself needed a better work life balance, so now they close up around 5pm most days. Milkfloat is open till like 8pm, so you can grab a late night brew if you’re needing it. I am a coffee addict, and could drink it all the time, but have been choosing to cut back recently to avoid the irritability I get when I slam the stuff down my throat all day. But, occasionally when the stars align I still do have a late night coffee, and I often get it from Milkfloat.

It’s also a cool place to just hangout. It’s filled with community tables as well as some smaller individual ones you’ll see young people typing away at, or enjoying the company of a friend or date. As I said before, the dessert options are pretty good. A lot of weird things they make up. My favorite being the donut muffin. It’s a giant muffin, but with the texture and taste of a cake donut. Just top notch stuff.

Number 4: Watermark Books and Cafe

This is foremost a bookshop, but, it also has a really nice coffee shop. They have their own blend called the Watermark blend that has a cinnamon flavor to it. They get the beans from a local roaster in town, The Spice Merchant, and then add their secret spice mix that makes it the most popular brew they carry. This is my second favorite place to do work after the Reverie. They’ve got nice little tables to work at, and it’s real quiet. Mostly old people meet other old people to have lunch, discuss books, etc. And, of course, there’s a bookstore when you’re needing a break! I honestly just love looking at all the cool stuff they sell that aren’t books (as you might know, I’m a big library guy) but I do look at their displays to get ideas for things I need to read. They also have a great candle selection if you’re into that.

Honorable Mention: Donut Whole

So, obviously this is a donut shop. And, I’d argue THE donut shop of Wichita. You just can’t beat their donuts. That said, they also sell Reverie coffee in a much bigger cup at a lower price. Outstanding. I love going here to grab a donut for myself and the kids while also enjoying a delicious coffee. This place doesn’t really have the coffee shop vibe…though, it also kind of does. It’s like a weird hybrid, so I’m tacking in on here as an honorable mention. You should definitely go here though. Hard recommend.

My Favorite Places To Get Reverie Coffee That Aren't The Reverie

So, I like saving a buck. I also enjoy high quality coffee. Luckily, Wichita is a blue collar working class town. We’re the home of Boeing, Cessna, Spirit, Hawker Beach Craft, and probably other ones. But the days of settling for your daddy’s Folgers are down. We demand good coffee. And the Reverie’s locally roasted coffee is definitely not Folgers. It’s great coffee. But, the price of the stuff at the shop is not great. That’s why I like to get it at these other places. Here are my favorites:

#1: The Donut Whole

God I love this place. All of their donut flavors are so good. My favorite is anything with a citrus flavor. But, hey, this post is supposed to be about the coffee, so let’s get back on track. They serve Reverie coffee here, but instead of giving you the baby cups they sell at Reverie, here you get a big ass cup, and you pay the same price (about four bucks). That’s for the large. I think it’s three something for the smaller size. A much better deal. Plus the donuts are amazing. Definitely go to the Donut Whole.

#2: Jump Start

This is a gas station chain that has recently started sprouting up in the Wichita area. I’ve mostly seen it in suburbs of Wichita (Haysville and Clearwater). But here, you can get a Reverie coffee in a large cup for a $1.09 (with tax!). The Reverie has some partnership with them. Reverie has set up these coffee machines in them that they call “Rev by Reverie.” The coffee isn’t as delicious as a traditionally brewed cup from any of the other shops on this list…but it’s still pretty good…and it’s a buck!

#3: Frost

This is an ice cream/dessert shop on Douglas. It’s right next to the Andy’s Frozen Custard (bastards came to College Hill to kill Frost…but they haven’t succeeded yet!). Much like Donut Whole you can get a large coffee cup of Reverie coffee for around $4.00. That’s how much you pay for a much smaller sized cup from Reverie itself.

#4: Any of the Hipster Restaurants in Town

Home Grown, Public at the Brickyard, etc. I really hate paying $4 for a tiny cup of good coffee (it’s only Reverie that I’ve seen do this), so I prefer getting their coffee almost anywhere else, lol, including any of the local hipster joints. Home Grown will even fill you up with some Reverie coffee to go, so, again, a much better deal than Reverie proper…and you’ll also get a delicious breakfast too!

DERBY PUBLIC LIBRARY: WHY YOU SHOULD USE IT

Welcome to my latest post in my “WICHITA IS COOL” series. I’m including cool things in the Wichita Metro as part of Wichita, because, hey, these places wouldn’t be so cool if Wichita wasn’t right there providing people with work, roads, etc., etc. So, IMO, all the little towns around Wichita are really just little neighborhoods of Wichita (I hear some people call these things “the suburbs”).

Today, I wanted to highlight Derby Public Library. This place is great. My family visits this place at least once a week, or any time we’re in Derby and looking to kill time with the kids. For us, it’s conveniently across the street from where Kinder Music is in Derby, so that’s how we discovered it and why we use it so frequently.

1. Free Coffee. If you love coffee (and why wouldn’t you?) you can get it here, at Derby Public Library, absolutely free. And we’re not talking Folgers (though, I’d drink that too…despite being a lover of high-quality coffee, I’ll drink the cheap stuff too) this is some high-quality stuff. And despite being spat out of a machine, it doesn’t taste watered down like Keurig coffee. I don’t know what’s going on with these machines. Is it drip? Is it grinding it and then doing the k-cup thing and just shooting water over it for a couple seconds? I’m really not sure. I just know it tastes great. And it’s free.