Inside Intelligentsia’s New ‘Contemporary Nordic’ Wicker Park Bar

All photos by Intelligentsia Coffee

Intelligentsia Coffee is publicly opening its new Wicker Park coffee bar tonight at 7 p.m., with an official opening at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow, July 17. The new bar is on the ground floor of the recently opened 1611 West Division building, an 11-story mostly residential building next to the Division blue line stop.

Each of Intelligentsia’s coffee bars — now including seven in Chicago, three in Los Angeles and two in New York — take a different approach to bar layout, equipment selection and interior design in general, although some interior color palettes tend to be repeated. The Wicker Park bar features Intelligentsia’s characteristic red-orange, creams and browns, including a red-orange coating on the customer-facing back of the La Marzocco Strada EP espresso machine, but Intelligentsia describes the overall aesthetic as “contemporary Nordic.”

There’s another big thing that sets the Wicker Park bar apart from the company’s other Chicago outposts. As DNAinfo reports, that big thing is beer and other boozy stuff:

And, if all goes as planned, the new Intelligentsia — scheduled to open at 6:30 a.m. Thursday — could be the coffee roaster’s first Chicago outpost to offer craft beers, cider, meads and sparkling teas on draft in addition to chilled espresso and coffee.

(related: A Communion of Coffee and Beer Coming to Chicago)

If you can’t wait until tonight, here’s a look inside the new Intelligentsia Wicker Park (all photos by Intelligentsia Coffee):