The Understudy, a Theater Cafe and Bookstore, Opens Soon in Chicago | Eater Chicago

"Located at 5531 N. Clark Street and opening on Saturday, March 25, this theater-focused bookstore and café—created by actor Adam Todd Crawford and stage manager Danny Fender—combines a massive collection of scripts and books with a full coffee bar serving Metric Coffee, pastries from pHlour Bakery and gluten-free offerings from Defloured, and teas from Coffee & Tea Exchange. The owners invested in specialty equipment, including a Ground Control batch brewer (one of only two in Chicago) and a La Marzocco espresso machine, and designed the space for flexibility: central furniture on wheels, a sliding ladder to reach high shelves, a lounge area for meetings or curling up with a script, and a walk-up coffee window set into a playful mural by Joe Kraft. Siren Betty Design translated the founders’ nostalgia for grand performance venues into marble tabletops and Rococo-style wallpaper while retaining the gritty, handmade character of storefront theater; artist Susan Williams wheat-pasted thousands of annotated script pages in a hallway. Divided into a south cafe and a north book-lined store, the venue is intended for readings, performances, community gatherings, and quiet study, and its long opening saga underlines the owners’ philosophy of celebrating the creative process rather than a finished product." - Naomi Waxman