CTA Announces New Upscale Coffeeshop Projects For Blue Line

By Anthony Todd in Food on Mar 17, 2013 3:00PM

Don't expect to see your standard convenience store at the Damen and California Blue Line stops. (Chuck Sudo/Chicagoist)

It's about to get a whole lot easier to find your morning caffeine fix, at least for some CTA riders. We've often looked with longing at the shuttered retail spaces in many CTA stations, wondering why no little café could make a go of it given the enormous captive audience. Well, Glazed and Infused has already started to make a try on the Brown Line and a few others are now coming to the Blue Line.

DNA Chicago Reports that a new start-up, "Café Transit" is opening two locations at the Damen and California Blue Line Stations. The cafe is a project by Darko Arandjelovic (owner of Caffe Streets), Brent Norsman and Kevin Heisner (owner of Bangers & Lace and The Anthem). The design is being run by the owner of Wicker Park store Transit Tees, Tim Gillengerten. That's plenty of talent for an 80 square foot space! Both locations should be open by summer.

In addition to the Cafe Transit locations, a new Dunkin' Donuts is coming to the Kimball Brown Line stop and "The Bageler and His Wife" is coming to the Belmont Blue Line station.