Why necessary & sufficient coffee® Exists

An artist-led placemaking project built around connection, quality, and doing things well—without an agenda.

How it started

necessary & sufficient coffee® began as a placemaking project rooted in art and social change.

Opened in 2019 by a full-time working artist, the café was designed to offer neighbors a place to connect without an agenda—to slow down, share space, and remember each other’s humanity in small, everyday ways. It opened as a take-out window café in a tiny Logan Square business district at the bottom of its down cycle, with an art studio operating in the back.

It wasn’t designed for scale or spectacle. It was designed to work.

What happened next

It did.

Neighbors connected. Regulars returned. Conversations took root. And the block began to change.

Within two years, three additional women-owned businesses opened on the same block. Two years later, three more opened on the adjacent block. We didn’t do that alone—but we were part of a visible shift toward local investment, creativity, and care.

All the while, we were serving the highest-quality specialty beverages, local food, and quietly joyful drink recipes—balancing rigor with play, and creativity with consistency.

In 2023, we opened our second location: a walk-in, sit-down café in Printers Row.

This location includes seating and a modest kitchen serving the same high-quality breakfast and lunch options, with the same attention to sustainability, hospitality, and craft. The formats are different on purpose. The standards are not.

Menus and offerings vary by location. Our expectations do not.

Two Locations, Same Standards

In 2023, we opened our second location: a walk-in, sit-down café in Printers Row.

This location includes seating and a modest kitchen serving the same high-quality breakfast and lunch options, with the same attention to sustainability, hospitality, and craft. The formats are different on purpose. The standards are not.

Menus and offerings vary by location. Our expectations do not.

Sustainability, Practiced (Not Performed)

We are proud to operate both locations as zero-waste cafés.

For us, sustainability isn’t branding—it’s operations. It shows up in how we design menus, manage waste, choose partners, supply a living wage to our employees, and make decisions that hold up over time. That is why many baristas choose to have a career with us.

We are woman-owned, sustainably driven, and deeply rooted in our neighborhoods. Not as a posture. As a practice.

About the Coffee (Because It Matters)

We are selective in our partnerships and uncompromising about quality.

The coffee we serve scores in the 90s—a distinction no other Chicago café or roaster currently claims. We believe exceptional coffee should be rigorously sourced, transparently priced, and generously served—without gatekeeping or theatrics. That’s why we partner with award-winning Olympia Coffee Roasting Company.

Good coffee should be impressive. It should also be welcoming.

What We’re Serving

necessary & sufficient coffee® is built on the idea that cafés can be places of connection, care, and excellence—without needing to make a big show of it.

We like things well-balanced. In the cup, and in how we operate. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re in the right place.