Missouri Guide and Deals

In a city where every gooey butter cake claims to be the best, today's deal gets you the bestest, gooiest, butteriest, cakiest cake of them all, as determined in a brutal underground cake-fight tournament as gory as it was gooey. For $10, you get a 9"x13" gooey butter cake at LaFayette Square's Park Avenue Coffee­—a $20 value. You can only get one Groupon for yourself, so buy one for all your friends and rescue their babies from burning buildings so they'll feel obliged to share. You may redeem this Groupon starting Monday, December 14.Follow @Groupon_Says on Twitter.

Elevate your daily routine with jubilation and percolation. Today's side deal gets you $6 worth of coffees and snacks at Hard Bean Cafe in Grandview for $3. From hard beans come the smoothest, silkiest coffee drinks, and Hard Bean Cafe's fresh-roasted Arabica beans stand as proof. Get your desired joe with flavorful hot brews that slide down the hatch and heat your entire system, kicking your mind into gear.

Kakao's chocolate bars and barks, truffles, and other confections are handmade on-site and feature local ingredients, including Mattingly's beer, sunshine, and feelings. While some menacing candy makers inject artificial space-whale fat into their whale-fat pies, Kakao eschews all artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. Fresh cream, honey, and sugar create the buxom, butyraceous taste of its caramels ($6 for a four-pack), and chocolate bark ($3) is chipped off the cacao tree with an axe.

Owner Teresa Poppinga whips up micro-batches in-house to ensure fresh, high-quality ice creams, stocking the shop's glass freezer case with a wide variety of rotating flavors and used glow sticks. Unexpected scoops have included everything from cake batter and cinnamon bun to lemon cookie and Grape-Nuts. Poppy's also carries sorbet flavors and frozen custard crafted from whole eggs and a 10% milk-fat base. The Petite Summit Sampler (five mini-scoops, $3) paints your taste buds with a Crayola box full of flavors. Flavor monogamists can get their fix in a homemade waffle cone ($.60 for plain, $1 for chocolate dipped) or sugar cone ($2.35 for a single dip, two dips for $3.35). For a spoonable sweet, peruse the sundae menu's offerings, like the old-fashioned Slow Sundae (from $3.25 for small) lacquered in hot fudge and caramel and studded with pecans and a cherry on top. Continue to satiate a sweet tooth with parfaits, malts, shakes, and concretes, creamy blends of vanilla frozen custard and toppings like buttery pretzel bits and coconut shavings.

MeMa's Bakery whips up traditional tastes, with sweet treats and lunch items made on-site daily. Named after owner Loraine Waldeck's sister's mother, MeMa's prides itself on being family owned, operated, and oriented. Sink your sweet teeth into a playfully decorated, hand-cookie-cuttered sugar cookie, or one of MeMa's signature pastries, such as the traditional English-walnut povitica ($2.99 per slice), authentic German apple or cherry strudel ($2.49 per slice), or the Chateau Avalon ($3.99)—a giant cinnamon roll that's FDA approved for small and medium people too. MeMa's pastries may be purchased individually or in assorted trays ($16.99–$54.99, depending on tray size and pastry choice).

The coffee girls' menu lures in Argonauts of the ante meridiem with its siren song of caffeine, smoothies, juices, and breakfast items. The coffee ($1.80 for a 16 oz.) is freshly brewed using beans from local bean baron Broadway Roasting Company and is accompanied by an entourage of caffeine-crowded specialty drinks such as the freeze ($3.95 for a 16 oz.), which icily blends coffee with caramel or chocolate, and the coffee girl ($3.95 for a 16 oz.), which drops a double shot of espresso with vanilla-bean flavoring capped with steamed cream.