Printers Row Coffee

This morning a failed as a Chicago coffee fanatic, I have completely lost my touch and my caffeinated touch. Sad to report a coffee cafe opened in my neighborhood of Lincoln Park nonetheless without me knowing about it. They call themselves Printers Row!

I am quite fortunate to have Danny with me because he was the one this morning that woke up in need of some coffee, he is also the sweetest in making sure we hit enough coffee shops for me to blog about. (I need to step up my writing and posting game is the real issue). Back to this morning, Danny was in need of coffee and suggested we walk Duncan and grab some on our way home, killing two birds with one stone. I being at a slight lose for new coffee shops in the area suggested Baglers Coffee since when I had gone Danny was not with me. As we are walking in that direction he suggests Printing Press, me having no clue what this is says, “yes of course always down for coffee”. I think in the back of my mind I was picturing this one bakery that we tend to walk past and just assumed I was getting the name confused, so on we walked.

Printers Row is is a great location right on the corner of Lincoln and Altgeld. For those unfamiliar its in the heart of the DePaul-Lincoln Park neighborhood. Not a far walk for me and once all the new construction is complete they will have some prime real estate.

Danny sends me in of course so I can capture some pictures and chat with the baritas, I also was unsure what I wanted to order so being able to look at the menu and see what sounded good was also needed for me. Danny has transitioned to a cappuccinos guy, he has been sampling them all over the place. I’ll have to get him to write a post about cappuccinos.

The space is actually quite large, a little empty at the moment but they have only been there for a month, I’m sure they will bring in more furnishings gradually. But for right now they have a large shared community style table a new high bar style stool that face the coffee roaster. It almost looks like they could host coffee bean roasting lessons or events with how the setup looks.

There is also a small bench along the front window, though I don’t think you would actually want to sit here, if busy you would be right in the way of where the line would start to form.

I chatted with the baristas to gain a little more insight into the store and where they get their beans from. Found out their coffee beans from all over, its constantly rotating because they will only bring in a small amount, roast, use and then purchase another. There are no beans sitting around here getting old. Everything is brought in fresh and used right away. I think it is a great concept, not wasteful at all either. The only bean they will always have on had is the Sumatra bean they is used for all their espresso drinks.

I landed on ordering a cortado, this has become my new go-to drink. It typically has the perfect balance of milk to espresso and really wakes me up since its basically a shot of espresso with a dash of milk, meant to only help cut the acidity.

There were also a few options for baked goods, not sure where these were cooked? Maybe the back though the shop really doesn’t have much of a back area where cooking or preparing would take place. The one oatmeal looking cookies was the size of my head and quite tempting but no sweets for me today, just the two coffees to go.

I had the boys waiting on me too, so I didn’t want to freeze them out there while I chatted away. Will absolutely be back to try some of the other beans as a drip coffee, that just looks and sounds like it would be fabulous. Now that I know how close this cute shop is too, I’m sure I’ll quickly become a regular. The whole coffee shops story on how they got started is just so inspiring that I would of course support them over a Starbucks any day.