Chicago’s Bow Truss Doubling Retail Footprint to 12 Shops, Including a Cali Café

The Lasalle Loop location opening Monday. All photos courtesy of Bow Truss Coffee.

The structural frame of Chicago’s Bow Truss Coffee Roasters is in the midst of fast-track construction.

The Chicago roaster/retailer, which exactly a year ago opened its third café, cut the ribbon on its fifth café this week downtown at the intersection of S. Michigan Ave. and E. Jackson Blvd., with yet another opening planned for Monday at 190 S. Lasalle in the Loop. But that’s just the beginning. Bow Truss Founder Phil Tadros told Daily Coffee News that six additional shops — including an outpost in Beverly Hills, Calif. — are either under construction or in immediate plans.

To be clear, these are not pop-up shops or branded corner spaces inside other existing businesses. These are full-on Bow Truss-branded brick-and-mortar cafés. Tadros, whose other entrepreneurial projects include the creative agency Doejo and the forthcoming Aquanaut Brewing Company in Bowmanville, has repeatedly told Daily Coffee News that he gets a genuine kick out of build-outs and the building up of new Bow Truss storefronts. 

The Michigan Ave. location

But this pace of building is hard to sustain alone. Tadros and the Bow Truss team are bolstered by a creative mix of investments, many of which have come from loyal customers who believe in the company and brand. Seven individual investors have pledged amounts between $25,000 and $250,000, with an additional investment from small-business lender Bond Street of $400,000, bringing the total amount of loans up to approximately $1.3 million. Bow Truss even has an “Invest” tab located prominently on its website, highlighting some of the company’s growth history and encouraging potential investors to reach out to Tadros. Said Tadros, “It opens the dialogue.”

The Logan Square location.

Look for forthcoming Bow Truss locations in Roscoe Village (two of them), Irving Park, North Wicker Park and Evanston. The Beverly Hills shop will be on N. Camden between Santa Monica Blvd. and Wilshire.