New cafe opening in Logan Square/West Bucktown

Hi all. This is my first post. People familiar with the site suggested I post the info about my cafe opening here. If this is not appropriate or if it should go elsewhere, please let me know. I'm a newbie & want to play by the rules!
Anyways, here goes. My partner & I are opening a new cafe at 1912 N. Western, right under the blue line Western el stop. It is called Vella Cafe & will be open for breakfast, lunch & weekend brunch. We will be closed on Tuesdays to start with. For the past two years we had a panini stand at the Green City Market. We now took the big step & are opening a cafe. We plan to open at the end of April. I would love to tell you more about it. Let me know if you have questions, etc. I don't want to go on & on with a "full page ad" if that is not appropriate.
Thanks alot.

I enjoyed two excellent paninis at the green city market, served by the very friendly, hard-working owners of this place. I wish them great success!

i would love to hear more about what you plan on doing at vella cafe, and, based on the respectfulness and modesty with which you composed your first post, i don't think anyone would think it inappropriate or a "full page ad".

plug away!

Thanks so much for the warm welcome elakin. We are very excited about opening our cafe, as it has taken us two years to find a location & build out a space. We plan on being open from 7am-3pm to start with, closed on Tuesdays to try to catch up on some sleep! We'll have seating for 50. Since we are right under the Western el stop we hope to be a stop for those morning commuters. We'll be serving Intelligentsia coffee & espresso & fresh house baked pastries, muffins, scones, coffee cakes, carrot cake. We will have a full breakfast, including vegan options, a yummy tofu & soy chorizo scramble. Lunch will be house made soups, salads & the panini we were known for at the Green City Market. My partner makes an addictive brisket sandwich with butterkase cheese. We plan on using alot of the vendors we met at the market. Lunch will also include vegan/vegetarian options. On the weekend we will be serving crepes on our brunch menu. We used to do a crepe brunch at Kitchen Chicago, a shared use kitchen in Ravenswood Manor (good people & an invaluable resource) We hope to eventually open for dinner once we get it under control. We are very excited. I live in the neighborhood & I think that area really needs a good casual breakfast/lunch spot. We're ready to give it our all! I'll keep everyone posted, no pun intended, when we have a solid opening date.

Sounds great, we'll stop in once you are going!

Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it, too, as a nice lunch trip from my north+damen office. That north+damen intersection is really awful for lunch food, sadly.

That's a pretty groovy spot around there - the Green Eye is a good bar, Calvin's BBQ is around the corner, lots of foot traffic from the L.

FYI, one of my distributors used to sell my chipotle-flavored bloody mix at Green Street Market; lemme know if you'd like to try the all-purpose marinade/dip/sauce called "Party Sauce" sometime.

cheers

marty

Ya, the owners of the Green Eye are our landlords. Cool guys. We hope to work closely with them. That area seems to be changing, a few other shops, etc going up on Milwaukee going toward Wicker Park. I'm trying to figure out who sold your bloody mary mix at the market. I know the Tomato Mountain guy had bloody mary mix. Was that yours?

I didn't end up having a very good experience with the guy who was selling my bloody mix at Green Street Market (can you say "bait & switch?"), so I don't want to say more about that. But I will say my bloody is a chipotle-flavored one with some strong credentials..

On a different note... has anyone noticed that looking at all these food-related blogs & online stuff makes you hungry ALL THE TIME?!?!?! I'm not normally that way, but the more computer-based food-related stuff I do (which is a lot) is really having its effect...

cheers,

m

I can somewhat relate to the "hungry all the time" effect. With me its probably more an issue of wanting to eat things like tripe pizza and headcheese eclairs for every meal, instead of choosing spinach salads, flax seeds and pomegranite juice more often. Maybe we need a "Nutrition and Power Foods" section. Yeah, that's it! Now excuse me while I hunt for a pig tails & sauerkraut recipe...

good one stewed

stewed coot wrote:I can somewhat relate to the "hungry all the time" effect. With me its probably more an issue of wanting to eat things like tripe pizza and headcheese eclairs for every meal, instead of choosing spinach salads, flax seeds and pomegranite juice more often. Maybe we need a "Nutrition and Power Foods" section. Yeah, that's it! Now excuse me while I hunt for a pig tails & sauerkraut recipe...

I drink a mix of 100% pomegranate juice, unfiltered apple juice and cranberry juice (100% juice, no sugar) every morning. It's my antioxidant cocktail. And maybe it isn't doing me any good, but one can hope

is there an opening date set?

i've taken up a new hobby of... eating breakfast. so i'm always lookin for quick lunches in the AM and take this stop now some days ...depending on how the cta sways me.

We are looking at May 16, but don't quote me on that quite yet.