…and I saw a door standing open in purgatory, and lo, a barista with seven hands was summoned forth– Urban Revelation 6:5

photo: Foundation 3D

I went on a vision quest, and it turns out that my spirit animal is a barista. “Wormhole Cafe” is the 3rd of a multi-part post on Coffee and Free WIFI (and doughnut shops) in Wicker Park. In it, I reveal all my spirit barista showed me during my quest. To read it from the beginning, click here. For a complete listing of the Wicker Park cafés and restaurants miLam has reviewed, click here.

Log On, Chicago. Edition XI/iii

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The Wormhole

1462 N. Milwaukee

Rating = meh

Pros & Cons: nothing really sticks out in the pro or con category

Coffee: I’m drinking an iced HalfWit Colombian coffee: it’s a beautiful amber – close to the color of root beer. As you drink it, a mellow sharpness spreads across the back of your tongue, eventually developing into a clean, bitter, hoppy finish that lingers for a while. Over the top of that, earthy wood tones. WIFI: Yes. Can you work or study here? Not much seating, and some of it – like the bar seating along the northern wall – is seriously uninspired. Nice outdoor seating is sheltered from the afternoon sun. If you managed to snag one of the sofa seats near a plug, I think you’d be pretty comfortable working or studying here. Plugs: Most of the place is plug-happy; a few spots are plug-challenged. Public Restroom: Didn’t investigate.

photo: Virgin Atlantic

If you’re obliged to have music in your café – and I wonder whether that is true, or simply assumed to be true – I’d be OK with Joanna Newsom’s “In California,” which is what’s playing at The Wormhole as I’m writing this post. In terms of ambiance, Wormhole is the most a-café-just-kind-of-organically-grew-here-completely-unintentionally café in all of Chicago. Truly. If you told me that this place was once a seriously neglected college-student loft apartment and over time, it just kind of became more and more of a café, until one day, everyone looked around and realized that no one who was still here was actually still in college, I’d believe you. Milwaukee Ave is one of the major pathways that leads to the midpoint of the brohemian macrocosm. I’m watching hipster after stylized hipster promenade past the window behind which I’m seated. Many of them resemble 19th-century mustache-waxed dandies. That provokes me to contemplate whether The Wormhole could actually be a wormhole. Could post-apocalyptic, fully-gentrified hipsterism actually be an exodus from the late 1800’s? Did the Chicago fire burn so hot that it produced a wormhole, and the people presumed to have been consumed by its flames were actually transported to the turn of the 21st century? Yes! It’s all starting to make sense now.

Late 19th century? Or early 21st?

photo: anissa6 on Pinterest

photo: imgur

Did a man with a long beard and a beaver tail pinned to the ass of his pants just walk by? Starting to wonder what’s in this coffee, and can I get more…

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Wormhole Cafe: Coffee and Free WIFI in Wicker Park, Chicago

Wicker Park is easily accessible via the Blue Line. Sorry, northsiders. You’ll have to Divvy. But please do not Uber. It is so plebian. Take Lyft, for God’s sake, if you have a soul.

Other places to log on: Archer Heights, Boystown, Fulton River District, Gold Coast, Lincoln Park, Pilsen, Ravenswood, Rogers Park, West Town, Uptown