Two Hearted Queen: Chicago Coffee Adventures

Last Friday, I visited the Two Hearted Queen coffeehouse in Lake View. It’s a few minutes walk away from the Brown Line Southport stop, but easy enough to get to.

It’s a sweet little shop, tucked into an area that’s mostly residential. All the reviews that I saw online before going said that the baristas were extremely friendly, and I heartily agree. The service was pleasant, and they seemed to have a good rapport going with all the customers, regular or otherwise.

Inside, it is a cozy variety of spaces. The entrance is just the coffee bar and small waiting area, but further in it opens to a space with a few larger tables and a couch, and even further in (to the right of the right photo above) is an area with several smaller two-person tables, two more large tables, a couch, and a window seating area with comfy chairs.

There were also lots of fun decorations on the wall, some relating to coffee, others to the Queen of Hearts, and others just various pictures or sayings.

These photos also show the main color scheme of the entire place, a mix of the yellow, red, and blue shown above. It worked really well. There were a few painted windows like the one shown above, some blank and some with quotes.

Two cozy corners. There were large windows all along the street side of the shop, so it was hard to get a good picture of the comfy chair area with all the light coming in.

Two sides of the same wall. There were some old typewriters lying around as decoration too, which I absolutely love. The coffee was good as well, which is obviously a necessity.

The table decor was pretty and simple. I loved these little carnations. Some examples of the music played are Little Favours by KT Tunstall, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, The Rifle’s Spiral by the Shins, and My Girl by The Temptations.

At the register, there’s a stack of playing cards. Before you pay, you’re allowed to draw any card from the stack. If it’s the Queen of Hearts, you get 50% off your order! Unfortunately, I didn’t draw the right card, but it’s still a wonderfully fun idea.

Overall, a great experience. I would definitely go back if I had more time. It’s the perfect little neighborhood coffee shop, and a delightful place to study for a few hours.

Sawada Coffee: Chicago Coffee Adventures

Due to the glorious weather and a four day weekend, Kirsten and I decided to make the most of our Saturday. We went down to Greektown for lunch, enjoyed massive gyros at a local restaurant, grabbed some coffee, and walked all the way to Maggie Daley Park.

For the coffee part of our afternoon, we checked out Sawada Coffee. It’s about a block north of what is officially considered “Greektown”, and was absolutely packed because of the weather. Kirsten and I both got cold brewed coffee, and we didn’t stay long. The place was crazy, and we agreed that it would not be a very good place to study, at least not early on a Saturday afternoon when the weather is super nice.

Part of this is probably because while the coffee shop itself is quite a small area, it is attached to what I think is the Pizza Parlor Bar. The two spaces are connected as if in a large warehouse, and if you take a few steps down into them main area of the room, you’re in the restaurant.

Here you can see one of the coffee shop patrons attempting to get work done at the “ping pong” table that is one of the only places to sit in the actual coffee shop (there are a few seats at the windows looking out onto the street). The two girls are sitting on a bench between the Coffee shop and the bar, and the big main area is the Pizza Parlor Bar, accessible through a staircase to the left of the photo.

Here’s another look at the area down below. There were patrons taking coffee into that area as well, but they may have been ordering food also. There is a little more room down there too. I’m not 100% sure it’s the Pizza Parlor Bar, but it might be part of it, or another similar restaurant/bar space.

Sawada Coffee itself is not the easiest to find. Like Wormhole, Kirsten and I nearly walked right past it.

This is the main entrance to the coffee shop, and the direction which we were coming from had no signs or indication that this is what we were looking for. On the windows, there is small writing with the name, but we didn’t see that until we were past the door.

After getting through the graffitied door, and going up a few stairs, it becomes more clear that this is the place.

Everything is very simple and very unique. There are lots of skateboards and lots of graffiti. I wish I could have gotten more pictures, because it was actually a pretty neat space, but we only stayed long enough to get our coffees, both because it was so crowded and also because we really wanted to be outside and walking around.

I really liked the pour over coffee maker station built into the skateboard. All surfaces were wood or brick, or like the wall below, some sort of rustic-looking metal.

The other side of the bar.

 

This is the sugar and cream station, back by the entrance, on the opposite side of the shop.

And lastly, the punching bag hanging by the door, my personal favorite.

On the way out, there is a nice graffiti wall by a staircase. Sorry the picture is a little blurry, since we weren’t staying I tried to take it a little too quickly.

I actually rather liked the place. It was definitely too crazy and loud to get any decent work or studying done (though there were several people trying), and it was a busy atmosphere, but I would go back, (perhaps not on the warmest Saturday all year), and enjoy the vibe. They played some David Bowie (and maybe some Elton John) while we were there. It was playing rather loudly, though, as we could hear it over the already loud din of voices.

So there you have it. Two coffee shops in one weekend!

As always, thanks for reading!

The Wormhole Coffee – Chicago Coffee Adventures

We have a long weekend here for Easter, so today Kirsten and I decided to go to a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in Wicker Park, The Wormhole Coffee. We actually walked past it at first, though that may have been due to the adorable toddler twins petting a dog outside that distracted us for a moment with their cuteness.

We did find it, though even if we hadn’t, there were half a dozen or more coffee shops that we could have gone to between Wormhole and the Damen Blue Line stop alone.

Mario Kart and TMNT drinks made us lol, as did the seasonal “Holy Water”, Iced Jasmine Green tea with Melon and Honey.

The biggest attraction for this shop is the DeLorean time machine at that back, but the nerdiness does not stop there. Next to Marty McFly’s car is a cutout of Darth Vader. Several R2-D2 figures are scattered throughout the cafe, and Han Solo makes a few appearances, both in cutout and Funko Pop! form. Lots of Funko Pops are all over, as well as older posters from movies like Aliens and Beetlejuice. 

 

 

 

The coffee is excellent enough on its own, though, and without the DeLorean, I don’t think the shop would suffer much. Kirsten was very pleased with her iced vanilla coffee, and my latte not only looked pretty, but tasted great as well.

They use their very own halfwit coffee beans, a company that this very coffee shop started in 2012. (Visit the site for more info.)

The tea is apparently on par too, as one of the girls sitting nearby me got an iced hibiscus-something-or-other tea, and exclaimed “This is really good! Well done, you guys.”

 

I just had to take some pictures of the nerdy decorations. This stuffed Millennium Falcon may have been my favorite.

You can’t see in the picture, but there are floppy disk coasters, and stormtrooper mugs to hold the straws. There is an Emperor Palpatine mug as well, but I’m not sure what his job is. The Computer is an 80’s Mac Desktop with a Janine Melnitz desk plaque on top.

 

Han, DeLorean, Vader.

 

It was very crowded (adding to the illusion that today is Saturday), so Kirsten and I sat at the counter. I particularly like the corked beaker that I think had some sort of coffee in it at one point.

Even the baristas discussed how packed it was, probably due to the weather (as opposed to the fact that today is Good Friday). Sometimes, sitting at the bar has its perks, at least in listening in on coworker conversation.

For a good portion of the first hour or so that we were there, it was so busy that it was hard to hear any music at all, or at least enough to tell what it was. Closer to noon, things slowed down just enough that I could catch a few songs, all from Future Island‘s Album “The Far Field”.

I just had to get a picture of the Iowa poster. For reasons.

And of course, R2’s knitted cap with horns could not go unnoticed.

So, there you have it. Wicker Park’s own nerd coffee shop, The Wormhole Coffee. Highly recommend, if you are ever in the area, though I will warn you, you won’t want to leave, and it may become your favorite coffee shop you’ve ever visited. (So much so that you almost want to go there every week instead of finding new places around the city. And by you I mean me. If only it were a little closer…) Honestly, though, nerdy cafes should be everywhere. They’re the best.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Let me know if there’s a coffee shop I should review next!