CCV Client Bronzeville Coffee and Tea in the News!

Check out the Chicago Tribune article by Charles Osgood about CCV Client Bronzeville Coffee and Tea below!

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A cup of optimism ‘Where coffee meets community’ in Bronzeville neighborhood By Charles Osgood January 24, 2010 It is hard — make that impossible — to imagine how vibrant that area of the city known as Bronzeville once was or comprehend how it might have been called the “Black Metropolis” or know what a significant place it has played in Chicago’s history. You can look it up in various Internet places and, among many interesting things, learn that when the poet Gwendolyn Brooks, a child of the neighborhood, published her first collection in 1945, she chose to title it “A Street in Bronzeville.” If you are a more adventurous and less computer-bound sort, you would do better to take a trip to 528 E. 43rd St. Yes, on your way there you will see desolate streets and more vacant stretches than any neighborhood deserves. But then walk into Bronzeville Coffee and Tea and meet a young writer named Ytasha Womack, who has just published her first book, “Post Black: How a New Generation is Redefining African American Identity.” She is working on her computer, not an uncommon coffeehouse pursuit, but this is not an ordinary coffeehouse. It has all of the familiar drinks, along with pastries and other light foods. And there is free Wi-Fi. But the floors are polished wood and the artwork on the walls is not generic but joyful and real, and conversations are lively and loud, especially at the stools set tavernlike along the coffee-making area. “That was the whole idea,” Trez Pugh says. “We wanted to create a place that would remind people of the scene at ‘Cheers,’ but without the booze.” That notion makes him smile. His business partner, Richard Chalmers, does too. They opened this spot in 2005, and they remember the toughest times. “Some people thought we were crazy and some people called us pioneers,” Pugh says. “But for those first few months, nobody came.” Now, the place is a Bronzeville oasis, often hosting comedy and jazz events, some in the pleasant outdoor garden behind the shop when the weather is kind. “Our slogan has always been ‘Where coffee meets community,’” Chalmers says. “And we want to watch this community grow around us.” The two partners are not of this place, having met in kindergarten at the Franklin elementary school (now known as the Franklin Fine Arts Center) in Old Town. “Growing up on the North Side, we had everything: coffeehouses, cafes,” says Pugh, who also works as a postal inspector, a job that entails wearing a firearm, as is evident in the photo. Chalmers, after a career in the airline and homebuilding industries, now works full time for the business. “We saw this area and we sensed how underserved it was, and had been for a long time, and thought we could do something about that.” Late last year, in a leap of optimism and checkbook risk, they opened Regents Cup in the handsome Regents Park apartment building at 51st and the Drive. This spot is less lounge-and-linger than the other operation because this healthy Hyde Park area is not beleaguered Bronzeville. Some days, especially weekends, you might find Pugh or Chalmers behind the counter making coffee. But most of the time they are on a street in Bronzeville, where they have firmly planted their dreams.