Passion House Coffee Roasters is still planning to open a coffee shop in East Garfield Park after the pandemic waylaid plans to open it in 2020, but the timeline remains unclear.
In 2019, the coffee roasting company, which also has coffee shops in Goose Island and Logan Square, moved its roastery from the Near West Side to a larger warehouse space at 328 N. Albany Ave. in East Garfield Park. At the time, the owners said that they planned to open a coffee shop in the other part of the building no later than the summer of 2020. The company still plans to open a coffee shop, but that would be contingent on how soon the city can issue the necessary permits, they said.
Passion House was founded in 2011. The company moved to the East Garfield Park in order to have more room to expand. In the interview in the fall of 2019, James Gray, Passion House’s CEO, said the move was a natural extension of the company’s mission to create spaces where people can bridge divides and share experiences. He said that the coffee shop would be located in the north portion of the building. Gray said it would employ “maybe five to 8 people’ and that they planned to hire from the community.
The West Side doesn’t have many coffee shops and while there have been several attempts to open coffee shops over the past four years, only two have borne fruit so far. Beelove Cafe opened last year at 1111 S. Homan Ave. in Homan Square, and Monday Coffee currently has a residency inside the Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N Central Park Ave., through the end of this summer.
Breakthrough Ministries operates Bridge Café a little more than a block west of Passion House’s roastery, at 3219 W. Carroll Ave.
In a recent interview, Eric Sucharski, the production manager at Passion House Roastery, said that they “are still planning to have [the East Garfield Park coffee shop] up and running in the near future.” He confirmed that the issue has been city permit approvals, but couldn’t elaborate any further.
Sucharski recommended reaching out to Passion House founder Joshua Millman for details. Millman didn’t respond to request for comment by deadline.
For more information about Passion House Coffee Roasters, visit https://passionhousecoffee.com/.
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