WEST TOWN — Atomix Coffee Shop, a tack in a area given 2001, announced in a Tuesday Facebook post it would tighten by a finish of a month.
Located during 1957 W. Chicago Ave., Atomix was one of a usually eccentric coffee shops in a area that withstood a changing sell and housing landscape on a limit of West Town and a Ukrainian Village over a past dual decades.
“It is with a complicated heart, that we contingency announce that ATOMIX will tighten during a finish of this month,” a Facebook post read. “After 19 years, it is time to to contend good bye- to Yuri and your favorite baristas.”
Dan Murphy, a owners of Atomix given 2011, pronounced financial pressures were a vital cause in a decision. Revenue began to decrease in 2017, he said.
“I know that it was a special place for me,” Murphy said. “I don’t consider we indispensably accepted or comprehended how special it was to other people. A good many people were means to grow and feel protected there, and enhance their lives.”
Atomix non-stop in 2001 with a space theme, that enclosed a vast blue-and-white picture of Yuri Gagarin, a world’s initial astronaut.
In 2010, Murphy began handling a coffee shop. The subsequent year, he bought a business.
The following decade saw lots of change in a neighborhood, Murphy said. Several new coffee shops and cafes opened, and trends within a coffee attention changed.
At many places, vast booths for writers and students who indispensable to stay out for several hours were transposed by tightly-packed village tables. All-day wifi was scaled behind to flog business off after an hour or two.
“We resisted all those things, for forever,” Murphy said. “I’ve enjoyed being a small bit a discord of a complicated coffee shop. But in a end, that is not indispensably a many sound financial decision.”
In 2017, Murphy began to notice a sheer decrease in revenue. He also knew many of a writers, artists and students who once comprised a bulk of his patron bottom could no longer means to live in neighborhood.
“I’m not green about this. … It’s a impersonal thing,” he said. “Businesses that are abounding [in West Town] would not have been means to exist years ago. And businesses that existed years ago, would not be means to flower today.”
One of Murphy’s favorite memories of owning a coffee emporium was a giveaway village events he orderly with staff and neighbors, like a giveaway yoga night run by a barista/yogi.
“That’s unequivocally like, a high point, [to] use your business to assistance other people and improved their lives,” he said. “Then you’re doing improved than someone who’s creation a lot of money.”
As regulars came in for their morning coffee Tuesday, barista Audrey Headley pennyless a news of a shop’s closing. Since holding a pursuit in Jul 2018, Headley pronounced she has privately gotten to know several adjacent residents and business owners. Atomix was her initial workplace where she became tighten with her coworkers, business and boss.
“I would even come in on my off days,” she said.
One of her favorite memories of operative during Atomix will be Monday film nights, when her coworkers would lift down a projector shade in front of a shop’s windows and uncover cult and fear flicks from a ’70s and ’80s.
Headley pronounced she has appreciated a “safe space” it supposing to a neighborhood’s writers, artists and LGBTQ community.
“I’d have to say, we feel people are famous and protected entrance here,” she said.
Jesse Sharkey, boss of a Chicago Teachers Union, was among a business who stopped in Tuesday for coffee Tuesday. In 2016, a kinship altered a offices to 1901 W. Carroll Ave., nearby a limit between West Town and a Near West Side. Since then, Sharkey pronounced he has relied on Atomix as a place to squeeze a coffee, break on a pretzel hurl sandwich and locate adult on emails.
“I’m contemptible to see it go,” Sharkey said. “I theory I’ll have to start exploring a area and see what else is around here.”
David Young, a trader, has been frequenting Atomix given he and his mother altered to West Town 5 years ago. His pursuit allows him to work remotely, and he enjoyed Atomix’s quiet, old-fashioned atmosphere. It’s also a few blocks from his daughter’s day caring center, that creates operative from a cafeteria all a some-more convenient.
“It’s been a tack for us, and I’m certain it’s been a tack for a neighborhood, too,” he said. “[But] I’m not shocked. The area has altered utterly a bit. … Nineteen years for a cafe, that’s flattering solid.”
Where will Young work next?
“That’s a million dollar question,” he said.
Christopher Papa, a medical proprietor during University of Illinois during Chicago and a two-year proprietor of Wicker Park, stumbled into Atomix for a initial time on Tuesday. While he pronounced he wouldn’t be expected to make a special outing behind to a coffee emporium before a closure, he appreciated that it wasn’t as “yuppie” as some of a coffee shops in Wicker Park.
Like Young, Papa wasn’t astounded to learn Atomix was closing.
“The coffee shop-per-capita in a Wicker Park area is flattering high,” he said.
Check behind for updates.
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