Next Door Cafe

I wish I could give this place the half star it deserves– their coffee is overpriced, it’s always packed so if you need a place to work in peace, go elsewhere. Also the financial coaching sessions get over booked– I tried to go to a session and they scheduled me for the wrong day and the «host» was rude and passive aggressive. So much for a neighborhood café…

Next Door Café is a great spot to go in the evenings or weekend afternoons to do work.
The setup is very conducive to productivity:
— Lots of outlets for laptop charging
— Different types of places to sit (e.g., couches, chairs) depending on what you are in the mood for and whether you are with a group or alone
— Strong WIFI
— Good hours — open late every night including Sundays
I am also a big fan of the food and drink options. They brew Bow Truss coffee, which is super high quality. They also have a pretty wide selection of assorted teas if that is your thing (it’s not mine). The food front is far more expansive than your typical coffee shop from smoothies, to pastries, to crepes.
I like that the smoothies aren’t made with anything funky — just the kind of real ingredients that I would use at home without any weird syrups/​mixes etc. The Boystown one is probably my favorite. It has milk, banana, peanut butter, and a raw egg. The raw egg sounds gross but you can barely taste it.

Cool concept, Coffee is fine. They put a $ 5 minimum on credit cards even though 90% of the menu items cost less than that. But my biggest problem is their terrible use of space. This is a huge warehouse with about 7 tables. The last five times I’ve walked in there have been no seats and I’ve had to leave.

Overall: Awesome place to come study or meetup with other students.
The good: Great friendly service. The baked goods are fresh (saw the pies being baked) and the coffee tastes great. Great music. Unique atmosphere but it has it’s flaws.
The bad: I’m not a fan of the atmosphere. It’s cool and unique, but when it comes to coziness and talking in groups, space becomes very limited quickly. Just from the setup. It’s a little too «clean-​cut». Also, their coffee sizes seem smaller than usual.
Atmosphere: ⁷⁄₁₀
Service: ⁸⁄₁₀
Food: ⁸⁄₁₀

I aced my GREs by studying here. The food is a bit expensive, but it’s a great café with every type of workspace. Whether you want to book a meeting in a conference room, hide out in a private cubicle, share a table with strangers, or lounge on couches, NextDoor has all of these options and offers classes, meetups, and entertainment to boot FOR FREE. How can free be anything less than five stars?

Hubby was close by for his big boy haircut, so Rosa J. did her Unilocal thang and found «Next Door Café» in Lakeview East/​Lincoln Park for a coffee/​morning pastry treat.
This coffee shop is sponsored by State Farm, with free wifi, quality coffee, and a few selections of pastry items. Everything listed on the menu is included with tax. While it’s quite convenient to save the extra work to know how much you would spend, this mathematical calculation literally requires moving a decimal to the left to figure out the tax (Chi-​town tax as of 01/​01/​2016: 10.25%).
My chocolate cookie pretzel and a 12oz. latte cost me $ 7. I think there’s a minimum cap for using a credit/​debit card ($ 5 minimum). While barista was working on warming my cookie and brewing my coffee, I found myself a nice, comfy red loveseat and began to chill.
This place is extremely suitable for group studies and small-​group meetings. There are multiple booths, corner tables for two (2), and a large conference room in the back.
It’s actually a lovely, vibrant spot to meet with friends, co-​workers, classmates, or to work alone. I will keep «Next a Door Café» in mind next time when I’m the area.

Next Door Café is a good place to study– free wifi and tons of space and tables for sitting. There are conference rooms in the back if you have a larger group with you. You’ll find some people chatting quietly amongst themselves but the vast majority of people are here for studying and working.
The coffee is fine, and there are many different teas. I wish, however, that Next Door had better food options. They offer some pastries, crepes, and salads, but there’s not much to pick from. Prices are also on the steeper end. Definitely be mindful that they only take card if you are spending $ 5 or more on your order. For orders less than $ 5, you must pay with cash.

I was here yesterday and when time came to close, the nice gentleman that works the café section came to «kindly» say that the establishment was closing in 10 minutes. I began to put everything away (but I’m working on a court case and had a lot of documents to put away properly and I had to close a lot of documents and save them again; as well as close web pages. Then, I had to break down my computer & pack everything up. So… another man (not so gentleman like) peeps his head in and angrily says, «We’re CLOSED «!!! I said okay. I was already putting things in order to leave… but he didn’t know. He frightened me a little, so, I didn’t say anything to him… I could tell that he was very angry at me. I peeped out of my curtin (I was in a cubicle) to see others were still seated & talking…
However, the man came back again and said WE are closed and it’s time to go!!! He then yanked my curtin back really hard, leaving it open. I was afraid to look up at him. I said, «I am closing down now; can’t you tell?». He said, «NO!!!» I said, «Well, come over here so you can l SEE ME closing down!!!» He said, «I don’t want to come over THERE!!!» He walked off yelling to the nice gentleman behind the café bar, to TURN OFF THE MUSIC!!! Then, saying I Guess it doesn’t matter… they left it on. He came back again and saw that I had my coat on… He didn’t say anything. I was afraid of him. I then walked up to ask him was he the one that asked me to leave. He said, «YES!!» I asked his name and he said Cameron. I grabbed my things and walked out, with him ON my heels; closing and locking the door immediately, NEVER saying goodbye or good night. YIKES!!!
Sigh… I really REALLY love this place though… The others are professional and courteous.

Super comfortable seating, great coffee, no problems with the wifi. I loved that you aren’t expected to buy something in order to occupy space.
Conference rooms are clean, free (with reservation), and worked well for auditions.
However there is serious room for improvement with the food. Its just salads, crepes, and sweets. I really wanted more options.

Super spacious and free wifi with Tax– Included drinks! I ordered 2 drinks today: one smoothie and one latte to do some work! I love the whole atmosphere and it’s fairly quiet too. i would definitely come back to try other drinks as well. Price is reasonable too

This is like one of my favorite places in Chicago, there is always a spot to sit down and focus, people mostly come to be productive. It’s a nice atmosphere to get some work done.
Coffee is good, food isn’t great but it’s a nice bite if you are hungry.
One thing I really dislike are some of the staff at the register. It has happened so many multiple times that I wait at the register to order or ask for a cup of water with them ignoring me completely until they finish what they are doing, and this doesn’t last for a minute, once I went back and fourth to the register for three times just for a cup of tap water. They never say I will get to you in a second or even apologize for me just standing there. I understand u r focusing on your crepes being perfectly done but I’m here to finish my assay and not to wait 10 minutes for a plain glass of water !!

I like the concept of this place, it is in a great location and the décor is very upbeat and posh.
I’ll cut to the chase with this review, I expected friendlier customer service from this type of unique and bright café. There’s no clear cut ‘cash wrap’ because they take your payment over the counter with an iPad, its awkward because the first question after they accept your payment is your option to add a tip, as the cashier is standing in front of you. Although they’re not really serving me as a waiter would in a restaurant I can’t see why it would be the first option after confirming payment.
After my payment was accepted, there was no exchange of confirmation that the payment actually went through, the cashier just engaged in conversation with another guest that approached with a question. And I just kinda stood there like «am I good?»
In addition, there is no receipt printer connected, so if you want a receipt, you are forced to enter your email to what appears as a data collection technique.
After my food was preparred, the cook called my order. I approached the counter to collect it and with I smile I said «awesome thanks man» and he turned around failing to acknowledge my attempt to connect.
I didn’t need more caffeine at this moment so I just ordered from their food menu. When I asked for a glass of water, he directed me to the table that has the «complementary water over there» came off to me funny, how about, feel free to help yourself to some water, it is right over there.
I almost ranked the place 2 stars but I’m convinced it’s worth the 3. The study tables have these strange containers attached directly in the middle, kinda takes away from study space. I wonder what these slots or for?

This is my go-​to place to study and one of the major reasons I don’t want to move out of my neighborhood. I’m almost afraid to give it such a good rating because I don’t want it to get any more popular. Great crepes, smoothies, tea and coffee. Wifi. Comfty couches. Good music. In spring/​summer the windows are open/​doors are open and you feel like you’re working outside. Great place to meet with friends to work on projects. They have private rooms but you need to get there early to get them. Highly recommend for a place to get work done or escape for a bit. They also offer daily seminars on living skills/​self-​care. Have not attended one yet. Note: It opens at 7 am– 10pm and the earlier or later you get there the better. It can be very crowded midday.

Next Door Café is an awesome place to study and drink coffee, though it can be tough to get a seat sometimes! I’ve had their soy lattes, and also recently tried their specialty cortado with fig, vanilla, and orange zest — I’m not usually a cortado kinda gal, but it was delish! The bf and I have also attended 2 of their FREE classes (yes, they’re cool like that), including a financial coaching class (we wanted tips for how to jointly manage our finances once we moved in together), as well as a healthy eating class. Although the info in the healthy eating class was not new for us, it was a.) free and b.) good reinforcement c.) a fun activity :). Oh, and they also gave us cards for a free coffee drink after attending a class! Count how many times I said «free» in this review. Free is always good in my book.

Nice ambiance. This is a café and co-​working space combined together. Different type of classes offered such as budgeting, logos vs brand, and other start-​up seminars.
The food was delicious. This is a crêpe place and the savory ones are the most popular. I really liked my caprese crêpe with mushrooms, tomatoes, and basil. Side note: some of the servers have a lil attitude at times.
Liked it overall.

It’s super crowded here on Sunday at 4pm. It has AC but some areas still smell like body odor.
My Lincoln Park smoothie has a hair stuck between the lid and cup. At least it tastes really good and healthy, though, because it’s not too sweet and the taste of fruit is strong. The iced green coconut tea that I ordered came out hot so they mixed ice in it and gave it back to me so it became a warm coconut green tea. I don’t understand how ‘iced’ got lost so that was slightly upsetting.
There is a $ 5 minimum for credit cards but a 12-​oz coffee or tea puts you under that minimum which means, if you want to pay with credit card, you need to order something else, which will put you close to $ 8 – 10. I think that’s a fair price if you plan on staying here for a while. The system asks if you want to printed receipt or emailed receipt, but there is no printer hooked up to the payment system when I selected that option.
I like the idea of this establishment. Maybe I came at a bad day and time. I don’t think I would like to come back until I hear from people I know, some amazing reviews of this place.
The smoothie is good. Some staff are patient and friendly. Lighting is good and noise level is not distracting. Plenty of people here to do people watching. Many resources here. Close to bus stop and other restaurants and residences. I also like how they offer lockers and small private spaces for groups. The high ceilings make the place feel more spacious, and the wifi seems to be fast considering the large number of people in the building. The restrooms are clean but one soap dispenser was out of soap. I’m glad they have air freshener in the restroom just in case someone does a stinky.

Best place to go when you’re «working from home». The place has big chalkboards/​whiteboards, great space to do creative thinking and whatnot. They sell coffee and tea too, free wifi!
I was visiting Chicago and my friend took me here because I had to finish up some work. Love it!

I’d consider this more of a workspace with coffee than a coffee house that allows one to work.
As one who works from home, this place has large work areas and its size being 4−5x larger than the average coffee shop ensures a milk frother isn’t heard in the background on conference calls.
Instead of cutesy little café tables, this place has large, sturdy tables that make laptop usage much easier. Wifi is fast and my T-​Mo had all 5 bars + LTE no problem.
If you want to drive your car to Next Door (see what I did there?), you can get lucky and score a neighborhood space to avoid paying Emanuel Parking Services, Inc. Just be careful from 6p-​12a if you lack a 143 sticker.
To me, this is like one of those collaborative workspaces without the monthly fee.

Next Door Café doesn’t seem to live up to the hype of what everyone says. On the weekends, it’s extremely crowded and can be really difficult to find seats. The seats are not terribly comfortable either and some of the table arrangements, especially in the back, are rather awkward. The teas are just okay and too overpriced. I got the Asian Pear green tea which essentially tasted like plain green tea so that was a letdown. The pastries are pretty good though.
Again, it’s much too crowded for my taste but if you’re able to snatch a comfortable spot, it’s not too bad.

I can’t begin to describe how wonderful this idea hub/​coffee shop is.
It’s nice and spacious with just enough lighting and nooks and crannies so that you don’t feel overwhelmed by the number of people there. The loft-​like style is also what I’d like my dream apartment to look like. The barristas are really nice, and I’ve tried a lot of drinks on their menu, my favorite in particular has an orange peel grated on top… can’t remember the name though. Their dirty chai is also really good but will give you a sugar high and a caffeine rush!
There are usually a lot of students studying here in the weekends. What’s really wonderful about this space is that they 1) offer financial coaches from State Farm 2) have great decorations in the café 3) offer you room to book spaces to study 4) have great coffee and pastries! You also don’t feel pressured to buy a drink before plopping down and reading/​surfing the web/​etc. What’s not to love???