Description: In this podcast, I am with you to share my experience in a Chicago late-night coffee shop, extend a reflection on Night as a dual meaning, and introduce a non-profit coffee shop to explore the roles of a coffee shop in the city.

Lei is going to have his Chicago Classic Browne before the sight of sages, in the Broadway Cafe.

 

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Transcript:

Welcome to the ELI’s Finding Chicago Global Perspective podcast series for AEPP 2025. I’m your host, Lei, and I’m currently enrolled in the University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy.

So hello, are you a coffee lover? I would say I am, especially when I first arrived in Chicago. I have several days have to encounter with my jet lag. So during the night, I have many times certainly felt like having a good cup of coffee. So I went to search, this lead me to see and find a quite different model, I mean, business model of a coffee shop in the city, in the night. And it let me reconsider a role or a function for a coffee shop in a city. That was out of my experience.

So please, let me show you. Tonight, I will introduce two coffee shop to you. So let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. So let’s go to downtown.

Please picture this. We just out from the Jackson, the train station, and walking between the landmark buildings along the Adam street. So there have a Broadway Cafe. I apologize that should be café, the Broadway Café.

So let’s push the door and we definitely can saw, if 1am, the light are still bright, so the cafe can operate until 3am.

And inside there do have, the people are still working in the late night. They probably love working in the cafe vibe and maybe kind of the writers and they staring at their screens.

So besides that, maybe there have some tourists, some young people and holding their iced latte like they are not ready. They haven’t ready to to end the day. So it feels like so everyone is trying to keep the daytime going and just a little bit longer.

We’re here to get the night throwing it in the cup of coffee.

So yeah, so let’s out from the Broadway first, and now we have got to have our transaction. And let’s go to the Englewood, which is a neighborhood of the South Chicago.

I saw a quite different story there. And there is a coffee shop called Kusanya. Their business hour is not about night, and they only offer breakfast and lunch, and are always closed in 2pm, I think, yeah,

So, I mean, so it’s not the night of staying up late, but the night of uneasiness. I mean, the kind of darkness that people carry with them, the night of stress, with worry and with the weight and, I mean, hope that they’re hopeless of life.

So, yes, please let me here. The Kusanya is actually not a commercial coffee shop; it is a 501(c)3) Non-profit organization. So by this roal, this lead, at Kusanya, the prices are very, very low, For example. So probably, yes, we’ve got there. And we can saw on their menu, just for our one buck, we can get a cup of hot coffee, and if we want a lunch here, probably we can order a fancy sandwich. I think their best one just cost $ 6.50, and maybe, plus a tax prop, $7. But for lunch, $3, $4 is always available. So why have such space/coffee shop. So I think here is not just for food, but also they are providing a safe place, I mean, a place of belonging.

Yeah, so so so in the neighborhood on the south side is always considered a relatively lower, lower-income community.

So Kusanya here is more like they have a space they can afford so people can come in to chat. Chant is the start. Chat probably makes the strangers run into conversation, setting a potential connection

Downtown and Englewood seem like different worlds. It also let me think the different life. Some people stay up all night, rushing the city lights, but others fight quietly in the shadows, waiting for just perhaps an opportunity

A coffee shop can be a nice option to support our lifestyle, but also can be a safe place, friendship, a living Room for those who don’t have such things.

Yeah, we went through we went through downtown, we went through the Kusanya. So that lead me to conclude —- the Chicago’s night are never just one thing, and coffee are not just a beverage. It can be a fuel to keep us awake, but also it can be a bridge that that bridge people to go together to build their community.

So, yeah, that’s what I thought about the night, the city, and from the coffee. But I do appreciate staying with me.

Yeah, I hope you enjoy your night.

Good night.