In less than a year, Joshua Millman has launched his own roasting company, snagged Chicago coffee maven Shannon Steele (formerly of Caffe Streets) as its brew specialist and generated a-well, buzz-for Passion House's high-quality beans and its community-focused approach to the coffee business. more ›

Food Republic names Intelligentsia's Doug Zell #1 in Coffee Power Rankings. more ›

Just in time for lazy gift-givers across Chicago, Wilco is launching its own brand of Intelligentsia coffee. (You can pre-order the "Coffee Lovers Bundle" here.) As the AV Club points out, this is just the latest in a recent trend of Wilco transcending itself as a critically acclaimed alt-country band, into a powerful marketing brand that trades in comestibles. Unfortunately, if you stop for gas on the Eastern seaboard (and Chicagoist hears they serve coffee there, as well), Jeff Tweedy won't see a single penny of your purchase at a Wilco Travel Center. (They're privately held, so it's not even in his 401(k).) more ›

Chef Joshua Kulp and Chef Christine Cikowski of Sunday Dinner, known for their locally-grown food focused catering business, get rave reviews from their guests and clients but their granola bars have always been highest on the request list. Listening to their fans and looking for business growth they created, Eat Green Foods. The company, so their website reads, is dedicated to producing a line of foods, “made with a consciousness that supports all things local and sustainable, from ingredients to packaging to economy.” Currently, the company focuses their efforts solely on granola bars. more ›

Early this year Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea stirred up some controversy over how they produced single-cup coffee orders. To wit: the local coffee purveyor had begun to switch how they brewed single cup coffee for patrons, abandoning the drip coffee method for a more labor and time intensive brew in the $11,000 Clover machine. That system, which was deployed in all but the Monadnock store resulted in a pricier cup of coffee and a longer wait. Fast forward seven months and Intelligentsia is again making changes in their stores. more ›

• 27-year-old Terry Sedlacek has been charged in the murder of Pastor Fred Winters. Sedlacek allegedly stormed into First Baptist Church of Maryville yesterday and shot Winters multiple times. Sedlacek is also charged with injuring two worshippers with a knife when they tried to restrain him after the shooting.
• Blago can't shake U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald; a federal judge has rejected the former gov's request to bump Fitzy off the case.
• Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis appeared in court to day and apologized for refusing the court order to hand over a list of all police officers who have had five or more complaints filed against them since 2000.

Foodie/urban explorer, carless advocate and eager drinker of bucket boy haterade Mike Doyle is beating on a bucket of his own over at Gapers Block's Drive-Thru blog regarding Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea's decision to replace drip coffee in their retail locations with more intensive brews extracted from $11,000 Clover machines. "(A) sub-$3 cup of coffee is now a thing of the past at Intelligentsia," Doyle writes. From there, Doyle launches into overdrive, wondering if all the changes Intelligentsia has implemented in its retail locations in recent months is a case of a company putting the cart before the horse, especially in our current banana republic of an economy. more ›

The Tribune reports today that Intelligentsia will no longer sell 20-ounce cups of drip coffee or espresso drinks, effective August 1. Company founder and President Doug Zell said the move is all part of Intelligentsia's larger plan to "focus(ing) on intensity of flavors and providing coffee in the way it tastes best," a philosophy that Zell has long espoused. more ›

At this point, most of us have graduated from decorating the walls of our humble abodes with the typical college posters of yesteryear. The dilemma then becomes a matter of how to display our personal sense of artistic style without succumbing to the availability of “artwork” sold at places like Bed Bath & Beyond, and without dropping vast amounts of money at the River North galleries or the summertime street art festivals. more ›