By SCOTT AUST / Greater Garden City
Editor’s Note: This article is one of a series of stories this month celebrating Downtown Garden City merchants and businesses.
After spending 25 years in Kansas City using her artist’s eye to paint murals a design doctor’s offices and children’s rooms, Allison O’Brate returned to Garden City and transformed Alli’s Art into a more culinary direction.
“I learn every day. I just want to make the community happy. I want them to have good food. I want them to have a different option in Garden City,” she said during an interview inside her business Alli’s Art, 402 Seventh St. No. D.
After moving back here a few years ago, O’Brate started helping her sister Erica Kuhlmeier, owner of Flourish Herbals, with charcuterie boards and became hooked.
“She kept bringing over these boards loaded with meats and cheeses. They were gorgeous and delicious. I thought, ‘This is so cool.’ So I started making them,” O’Brate said.
She soon moved out of Flourish and settled into her own retail space right around the corner downtown in early 2024.
Alli’s Art offers charcuterie, custom cakes, cookies, cake pops, chocolate work, or any kind of dessert.
“I try to maybe bring it to the next level and add something you can’t find anywhere else. Everything that goes out I try to make special for my customers,” O’Brate said. “This year, I’ve started doing lunch specials. Mini charcuterie boards, soups. We try to have a couple of different soups during the week because there’s really no place in town to go get a nice homemade bowl of soup. I sell out every time.”
O’Brate can offer any kind of dessert and welcomes visiting with customers to determine how to make their culinary vision into reality.
“I love doing this,” she said. “My favorite part is, for instance, when I do a custom cake for a kid’s birthday, to see their face when they see their cake. That brings me much joy.”
The best way to reach O’Brate is to call or text her at 620-765-0457, or message her through Alli’s Art Facebook page.
Alli’s Art
402 Seventh St. No. D
Business hours:
M-F 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturdays as needed, usually if she’s finishing some orders.
