Chicago

After my delightful Wisconsin adventures, I headed into Chicago for a few days.  I hadn't been in almost a decade, and I'm a lot more city-savvy these days.  Which is to say: not afraid of public transit, and with a long list of coffee-shops to visit.

Stop 1: Metropolis, 1039 W. Granville

Nice cafe, friendly baristas, delicious coffee.

Cleverin' at the slow bar.

Tony's Rwanda.

Wait a sec, isn't "Metropolis" NYC, and "Gotham" is Chicago?  I don't know, I don't know comics I guess.

Next: food at the Chicago Diner, 3411 N. Halstead.

I wound up coming here like three times.  Ridiculously awesome veg of the comfort variety.

More coffee needed: Kickstand Espresso, 824 W. Belmont.

Nice marquee.

Pulling spro from Metropolis, pretty tasty.

I really love the pocket-sized cafe.

Part of the reason I wanted to swing through Chicago was to see Amy Lawlor, who is the first serious barista I ever met, and also just generally awesome.  Amy works for a little company called Intelligentsia now, and she was kind enough to play "take your kid to work day" with me, so I got to check out a few of their locations.

3123 North Broadway:

I actually forgot to see what the Black Cat was tasting like--just tried the SO offerings, which were pretty tasty.

New location in the Merchant Mark:

Yep, that's a paddle-group PID Linea.

Needed some food, forgot to take a picture before our $4 falafels at Chickpea were pretty much devoured:

Best I've had in ages.

To the Roasting Works!

This is where the magic happens.

The blend-master working on latte art in the training lab.

Doug starts to explain tea processing to me.

Hair nets are compulsory, but complimentary!

Made plans to meet up with Amy & some other coffee folks later; meanwhile I have some other shops to hit up...


Caffe Streets: 1750 West Division

Slow-drip Burundi on ice.

Award for most stylish cafe!  Even the ceiling is cool.

Multi-roaster, good job!

And friendly!  They send me on to my next location:

Wormhole, 1462 N. Milwaukee.

Tasty shot, and I always appreciate a scutcheon or some such with it.

Cafe itself: friendly, multi-roaster, and densely, inexplicably pop-80's.  Don't know if you can make it out but that is a full-sized Delorean back there.


Ipsento: 2035 N. Western Ave

What a delightful little shop!

Roasting on this guy.

And pulling shots on this custom machine.  I got to talk to the re-builder, Chad, who walked me through some of his modifications.  This started as a Linea AV, but has been completely overhauled, temp & pressure controls changed, steamwands customized, wood-paneled, pretty snazzy.

Caffeine levels starting to get to me, so I get a sandwich as well, the "C.S. Lewis".  Withholding complicated literary/theological critique.

Non-incidentally, Ipsento gets the award for best cold coffee of my entire trip--some kind of hot-over-ice technique using their natural Panama.  Muy tasty.

Did some more wandering around, and eventually met up with Amy at the Happy Village.

And as mega-bonus, got to see Marcus!

One of the most amazing people I've met, Marcus has an almost supernatural gift for organizing, dealing with crazy-complicated problems without breaking a sweat, and generally herding cats while making even socially-retarded backwoods types like myself feel welcome.  When he announced that he's leaving the SCAA to pursue other coffee interests, people came out to literally sing his praises.

Back to my hostel!  Then up again early to hit some more coffee stuff before jetting back to Buffalo.

Millenium Park Intelli:

Lovely chemex service.  Also, I still am not over the Black Cat Ceramics.  Just really nice aesthetics on those.

Obligatory cloud gate photo.  Then, hopping the Blue Line toward the airport.

But first!  More coffee, this time at Buzz, 1644 North Damen.

Nice shop, dig the aesthetics.  Spot's actually done some business with Buzz: they are distributors for those lovely Bonavita kettles & coffee-makers you may have seen flooding the scene of late.

Need some food before O'hare.  My cousin suggests Big Star tacos, which looks awesome, but packed to the gills.  Instead, I head up to Handlebar, 2311 W. North Ave.

The "Green Meanie" was pretty much exactly what I needed.  Morbid curiosity gets the better of me, and I get a beermosa as well:

Okay, that was actually pretty good.

All told, I had a really fantastic trip.  The highlights were definitely seeing Sarah & Tony in Milwaukee, and Amy in Chicago.  That said, the coffee scene was inspiring.  It's really nice to see so many different places hitting the right mix of truly good coffee and friendly service.  Every barista I talked to in Chicago was not only helpful in the context of their own shop, but also quick to suggest other coffee and food to check out.

And now that I'm back in Buffalo, I have an awesome problem: how to drink all this coffee...