Tom Ptacek has independently owned a Coffeehouse in the Westport area of Kansas City for fifteen years now. He and his wife, Pam, run and oversee the daily workings of the Coffeehouse and the Theatre located on the lower level of the structure. Ptacek, the son of another Independent business owner, has never worked for another company in his life. Tom Ptacek is a true Independent operating in a world of decreasing Independents, a world where the very idea of Independence is diminishing at the hands of monolithic corporate entities swallowing up the Mom and Pop operations of the past.