New Day Dawns for Monday Coffee with Flagship Roastery Cafe in Chicago

Monday Coffee Founders Felton Kizer and Amanda Christine at the new shop in Chicago. All images courtesy of Monday Coffee.

Two key events in the long-term calendar of Chicago’s Monday Coffee are now complete with the opening of the brand’s roastery and first brick-and-mortar cafe.

The community-focused and Black-owned company founded by Amanda Christine Harth and Felton Kizer in 2020 held a grand opening celebration earlier this month inside the approximately 2,300-square-foot Starling building in North Lawndale, on Chicago’s west side.

Collaboratively designed with Rafa Robles and Carlos Robles-Shanahan, the founders of the building’s progressive development firm Duo Development, the Monday cafe embraces natural materials such as wood, glass and concrete, while bathing in natural light. The cafe space offers a sense of permanence inside the building that also offers public access to a sound studio, a conference room, three outdoor terraces, a garden and numerous seating areas.

“We wanted our presence to be felt and understood as a permanent place,” Kizer told DCN. “As a pop-up brand, it was time for us to generate roots and we wanted to do that in a community that we could grow with and cement the legacy of Monday.”

At one end of the new bar, in full view of guests, is the 1994 Probat L5 roaster that Monday purchased from its previous roasted coffee supplier, Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Littlefoot Coffee.

“We’ve been working with them for the last four years, and two years ago I started taking trips to GR to start learning from him,” Kizer told Daily Coffee News. “About a year ago we started talking about me buying his roaster because their production was growing. It was also around that time that I started creating my own profiles for Monday.”

As head roaster, Kizer is primarily focused on single-origin roasts, with greens coming from importers such as De La Finca, Cafe Imports and Catalogue Coffee. Kizer also attempts to align sourcing with a personal moral compass, focusing on family-owned and women/femme-owned farms.

Said Kizer, “I believe in fair and livable wages, sustainable working conditions, [and] centering LGBTQ+.”

Online sales of Monday’s roasted coffee is launching this week. The company also started roasting for wholesale customers and plans on doubling down on cold brew production.

“Over the years, we learned that cold brew is what we do best, and that is an offering that we provide that many coffee shops and brands don’t put energy into,” said Kizer. “Now that it’s easier to maintain daily filter coffee and espresso service, I want to continue to build out and scale our cold brew operation.”

Another retail concept by Monday Coffee called Dear Monday, a “coffee bodega,” opened briefly over the summer near Douglass Park and then closed temporarily while the crew focused on its opening in North Lawndale. Monday Coffee plans to reopen Dear Monday next month, offering packaged coffees from numerous roasters alongside brewing equipment, lifestyle and home products, grocery items such as fresh produce, snacks and staples.

“We’re planning to open those doors back in December, just in time for the holidays,” said Kizer, adding that a third Monday Coffee concept is planned for Chicago in 2025.

Monday Coffee is located at 3243 W 16th Street in Chicago. Tell DCN’s editors about your new coffee shop and roastery here. 

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