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Categories: American (New), Bakeries, Coffee & Tea
Neighborhood: EdgewaterCome in to Flourish and get a heart cake or cookie to be sweeter on your sweety.
Bryn Mawr (Red)
Mon-Sat. 7:30 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Sun. 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
"I love this coffee shop. You can't go wrong with comfy couches, FREE wifi, tasty coffee and smoothies. Most other places in Chicago have…" read more »
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Food's tasty, service is quick and friendly, and prices aren't bad, buuuut......it is crampeder than the cubicles at a sardine company. You could literally spend lunchtime in a stranger's LAP and I'm not kidding.
The sad thing was, I don't think they INTENDED it to be a "fuck-you" seating arrangement. I think they WANT people to sit and stay awhile, NOT "buy your food and get the hell out of here"....... what with the interior design, music, and loads of seats and tables six inches from each other. But they are trying to seat a good twice as many ppl as they actually should. I'm not talking about a fire limit or anything, I'm just saying if even half the seats were filled in there, it'd be like one of those lecture halls where you know what brand of deodorant the person two seats away from you uses.
But then again, they ARE definitely going for a "collegiate" type of atmosphere, and it seems to be working.....it was pretty crowded!
I heart you "mini-cake" carrot cake. Delish! Also the lemon mini cake was fabu!
As for the regular sized cupcakes I will pass on them the next time I come thru here. The chocolate and white cupcakes with "buttercream" frosting were kinda gross. Dry, stale, and the buttercream tasted more like "crisco"-cream. ick.
the girl behind the counter was quite helpful...although she couldn't tell me much about the carrot cake since she was allergic to nuts and hadn't tried it. but thanks to the lady sitting next to the counter who told me the carrot cake was awesome; you were right.
so if you're stopping by, bypass the regular sized cupcakes...they're not that good. go for a mini cake or a full sized cake.
The last cupcake I bought here was stale.
The last sandwich I bought here was kinda gross.
They seriously need to class up their service and menu....I probably wont' be back. Whoopie pie or no.
Cupcakes and brownies and pie, oh my!
Consistently delicious tasty-treats, though I'll admit the few…
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Just went here for the first time the other night. I was one of "those" customers who showed up 20 minutes before closing. My car was being repaired at a local shop and I was looking for some good eats.
The girl at the register was very nice and explained some different menu options. I'm a vegetarian so I always have to ask. I ended up going with a soup, salad and cup o joe. They let me sit, rest and finish my meal even though they were closed. I was very thankful for a warm meal on a cold night!
I've been meaning to review Flourish for awhile now. As a fairly new resident to the neighborhood, I was SO excited to have a local bakery that I can stop at on my way home.
I have only gotten baked goods from this shops: mainly the wheat sandwich bread, the rye bread, the dinner rolls, french bread, and some of the sweets. The wheat sandwich bread is the only sandwich bread I buy now; I get the small loaf, which is pricey at $3.00 a loaf, but I like the smaller size (perfect for my lunches) and it's nice to have fresh baked bread. The larger loafs are a better value, but almost every time I've gotten a larger loaf, it's been stale. One loaf was so stale that when I got it home and took out a slice, it literally fell apart in my hands. Flourish does have a special where you can get day-old bread for half-price, but I think that bread is older than one day (and that extra-stale loaf WAS NOT from the day-old section!). The dinner rolls are AMAZING--very, very buttery and rich. An entire roll could be a meal. The french bread is okay; I've had better. The cinnamon rolls are great and the monkey bread is pretty good, too. Overall, I think you have to try to get their baked goods earlier in the day and/or not on the weekends; they seem to cut corners on how they sell their "fresh items," which is really a shame.
Like many of the other reviewers, my experience with the service has been hit-or-miss. Sometimes I've come into the store and had to wait 5 or more minutes before anyone came over to help me. I haven't been poorly treated there, but after getting some really stale bread from there (which was sliced BY the people behind the counter, so they must have known it was stale to begin with), I almost stopped coming back. However, I lucked out one day when I returned to try my luck again. The older woman who works there (she may be the owner, but I'm not sure) was behind the counter and I asked her if the bread had been baked that day because the last time, the bread was really stale. She assured me that I shouldn't have been given stale bread and if it ever happened again, I should bring in the receipt and they would give me a new loaf. She then gave me a loaf of bread FOR FREE! It was obvious that she really wants her customers to keep coming back. For that reason, I give Flourish 3 stars, although it's teetering towards to 2 stars.
I have never eaten a meal here nor have I tried the cupcakes or cakes (I don't like icing and from the other reviews, I'm really glad I don't. I would just be disappointed.). It's really too bad that people have gotten rotten, spoiled, and moldy food from here. I agree that this shop should just focus on baked goods. They may make more money as a bakery/restaurant, but if so many people are having bad experiences, the business is just going to suffer.
I'll keep going back for my bread fix, but if their bread starts to go down hill like their other food items, you can be sure I'll update my review.
So, I'd like to give a 4 but I just can't.
Sometimes I like simple cupcakes, just chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, you know? The day I came in here I was in a simple cupcake kind of mood. I'm sure it would have been great if it were fresh because the cake tasted good on the inside, but it seemed like it had been sitting there for a while and was hard on the edges. Also, the frosting was pretty sugary. Like, make your teeth hurt sugary. So, meh.
But! They DO offer pumpkin bread pudding and although I didn't try it it sounds amazing. I will come back and try this and maybe then it'll get that fourth star.
If I was rating Flourish as a bakery alone, another star or two might have been in order - I'm sure this would be a great place to order and/or pick up a loaf of bread, or cookies, or cakes - but the "cafe" side of their personality left me a bit unimpressed.
We came in one Sunday afternoon for lunch with a group of six. Their dining area was spacious enough to accomodate a group of our size. We ordered sandwiches and breakfast burritos, which came out one at a time, rather slooowwly. Pokey service is not unusual for cafes which have very limited food choices, but Flourish had a pretty good-sized menu, so I would have expected that they'd be a little better staffed to serve the food more efficiently.
We agreed that the cookies and muffins that we sampled were all very good, but the sandwiches? Just OK, not really worth the wait though. I had asked for a lemon-poppyseed muffin to go with my sandwich but got a fruit cup instead - which wasn't bad, the fruit was sprinkled with sage (I believe) which added a nice flavor, but it wasn't what I had asked for.
I was also expecting that a place with "cafe" in their name would have more coffee-house-style beverage options (didn't see any espresso drinks available on their menu?)
I'd visit Flourish again for sweets-on-the-go, but probably wouldn't pick it again as a place to sit down, eat, and linger.
I feel robbed. I just got a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. Yeah, it cost $12.68 and though the soup is good, the sandwich had waaay too much cheese on it and it took a really long time for them to make it.
Sometimes a gal needs a cupcake for whatever reason. My reason = a recent split :( Following my sugar lovin' heart, I headed to Flourish.
Cupcakes = really cute, but I was eyeballin' the slightly, erm...., larger version: "mini cakes", as they call them. I picked up a pretty red velvet mini cake, modestly priced at $4. It's basically a Texas/jumbo sized cupcake with a good amount of icing.
Clocking in at a staggering 9 1/8 oz (it felt unusually heavy, so I had to bust out my kitchen scale), I destroyed that "mini cake". The red velvet cake was very dense texture-wise, but I'm kinda digging it because it was quite moist. No cream cheese icing present, however, their buttercream worked for me this time.
Today, my booty has 9 1/8oz more "umph". Thanks, Flourish!
PS: Well worth it! No regrets when it comes to cupcakes :)
Cupcake snobs, consider this a friendly warning.
I'm a pastry snob and did not approve of their…
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I wouldn't call it a coffeeshop - sure, they serve coffee, but it's COFFEE. Not lattes, cappachinos, etc like we've come to expect from places with that name.
What they do is make pastries, and they do that well. I've tried the lemon curd 'pie-fait' and the lemon was phenomenal. The chocolate trifle was also very good, decadently chocolatey.
They had samples of their turtle brownie out, and just a taste of that told me that I would need a big ol' cuppa joe or a glass of milk to handle that richness. Very nice, though.
I wanted to give 4...I really really did...why didn't I? Well2 main reasons.
First:
Cost..I'm a novice baker, but I do bake, actually weekly and most of the things they serve here, although SUPER DELICIOUS are not hard to make. I had a surprise b-day cake from here and I actually found the cake and cream cheese frosting dry..I was kinda shocked as most things I've gotten there when walking in were tastier...so if this is their standard for made to order..I wouldn't order. HOWEVER, the place is super cute, they do accommodate dietary needs, everyone I know loves whatever coffee they use (not a drinker) and I could romance their potato salad...
The only other gripe I have is sometimes the service is a bit slow..and preoccupied. Everyone that works there looks cool, almost too cool..and put out they're working..when I first moved here the waitstaff was a lot friendlier and personable in general...the last few times I've been in it's been very blah and a long wait w/no justified reason.
I don't expect people to kiss my ass, but a smile and listening to me so I don't have to repeat myself 4 times is nice if I'm giving you money.
I just wish they'd cut their prices by 10-15%
I have been here twice before expecting delicious sandwiches (what can I say, I am a sucker for a good panini); perhaps I should stick to their pastries? The service can be slow at times, the first time I waited about ten minutes, but the second time I waited just over 15 minutes for my lunch. The older woman who was helping me kept apologizing for the wait, so I am giving an extra star b/c she was so nice to me. Apparently whomever was making the sandwiches that day had forgotten to make my order b/c the two people behind me got their sandwiches first. The sandwiches are served on thinly sliced bread, which I don't know about you or not, but I prefer my sandwiches with thick slices. Also, the hot chocolate isn't good.
I hate to write it because I am all for supporting the local businesses, but Panera tastes better.
I work in the service industry so I'll let bygones be bygones and will try this place again, albeit it not ordering the paninis.
We were in the mood for a light dinner and we were exploring with a long walk north when we found Flourish, a little cafe/bakery located just steps away from the Bryn Mawr Red Line stop. This little shop with high ceilings offers some delicious sandwiches, cafe drinks, and an assortment of baked goods. We were here for dinner, but need to go back for breakfast. I'm really eager to try the breakfast burritos.
I ordered the California Turkey sandwich. Why? Because I love turkey, and anything with avocado is a winner in my book. This was a really hearty sandwich and it made me feel good about ordering it, because the ingredients seemed really healthy and fresh. Between two pieces of sourdough (you get to pick your bread), is a layer of herb cream cheese, Monterrey Jack cheese, thick slices of turkey, tomato, and a nice layer of fresh guacamole. What stood out the most on this sandwich was the addition of the herb cream cheese and the fresh sourdough bread (nice and soft but still with a crusty crust).
The sandwiches are served with your choice of a side or chips. I opted for a side of rice and orzo salad. I had no idea what it was going to be but decided to give it a shot. It turned out to be was a nice concoction of cooked wild rice, grapes, raisins, and orzo. I wouldn't necessarily order a large serving of this stuff, but it was a satisfying little side. The raisins where a nice touch in this, but the squishy grapes were not.
Lois on the other hand ordered the corned beef and swiss sandwich on rye, which ended up being way too massive for her to handle (she basically ate half). In addition to a ton of corned beef, the sandwich included two thick slices of swiss, a thin layer of cole slaw and brown mustard. The corned beef was decent, but not the best she'd ever had, and the slaw added an interesting taste to the sandwich. Compared to all of the corned beef sandwiches Lois has consumed in her life, this one gets just an "ok" rating. Nothing else interesting to report from her meal -- she opted for the BBQ chips as her side.
A side note -- while we didn't try the desserts they looked amazing. Tons of cakes, cookies and other sweet treats in very generous portions. We'll grab a few next time we duck in for breakfast.
Overall, a decent dining experience at a reasonable price. For less than $20 we were both completely stuffed for the rest of the evening.
It increasingly has become a weekly routine now for me to swing over at least once each week, just for the half-off pastries(including scones and croissants) after 5pm. And I think the service has improved, versus last year.
Tried the cookie sampler once, and those(including the rosemary cherry one) were pretty decent. I've tried some of the cake slices here in the past, such as the German Chocolate cake. While those aren't bad, I think there are better places out there serving cake. But I think I will be sticking with the good thing I have going with the 1/2 off croissants and scones, and doubt I'll be deviating much from those anytime soon. Which of course, would mean I'd have an unattractive hole in my wallet....
It's interesting how so many things here look better than they really are, such as the decor. Not to… Read more »
Yummy.
Yummy.
Yummy.
I love baked goods. I love well-made, tasty baked goods. Therefore, I have a lot of affection for Flourish. I have yet to eat any baked good here I haven't enjoyed. The beverages are good, too.
The sandwiches are alright. They're huge, but they aren't anything to write home about.
Fellow Yelper Dantee A. took be here after a lovely dinner in what I deem to be the best people watching neighborhood in Chicago, Edgewater. I really wanted Flourish to...well, flourish (or thrive would work too)...in my eyes. This little bakery has a lot going for it. Any cafe that has Soymilk available on the drink accompaniments bar deserves some loving (and no I'm not a hippie vegan), yet shouldn't that be kept refridgerated? The bright colors and pop art give it a fun vibe, but the dirty, scrap-ridden floors turned me off.
I had a pot of their Oolong tea which hit the spot, until I bit into my stuffed peanut-butter cupcake that was stale and hard. I dug in the center to see where the hidden peanut butter cream ($2/cc) was and it was non-existent. I did take it back to the counter and the worker happily switched it out for a fresh red velvet cupcake which was muuuch better. I would still avoid the cupcakes and go for a slice of their cake (around $4/slice). Do keep in mind that all bakery items are half-price after 6 pm (thanks for sharing the secret in person Dantee).
I hope Flourish isn't kicking themselves in the butt for having a sign near the bathrooms reminding critical people like myself to share their opinions on Yelp because it definitely has potential, but my visit wasn't all that positive.
I love-love-love Flourish. Any place that employs both a (sweet-natured) tatooed and pierced young buck and a (super-sweet-natured) older woman suits me fine.
The multigrain bread is FANTASTIC and nothing like it can be found for miles. The french baguettes are also good. The spinach-cheese croissant is a meal in itself. Great sandwiches, and the turkey sausage gumbo knocks my socks off.
C'mon--a fresh bread bakery and great hangout spot in Edgewater?? We're pretty lucky around here!
I really really like this place! Good coffee, AMAZING desserts, and freshly baked French baguettes! Prices are very reasonable, and the cafe is clean and nicely decorated. Now that I live in the neighborhood, I'll be coming here MUCH more often!
I stopped by yesterday for a drink because the weather was super muggy. I had the hot chocolate with ice and it tasted as if she didn't put any milk in there. Imagine hot chocolate powder mix and water. Enough said.
I looked at the refrigerator and they have the regular baked goods: cupcakes, cookies, cakes etc. but nothing was particularly appealing. Then again, you are talking about me. I don't do "regular." If I want regular, I would have made it myself.
The service is pretty good and the interior is comfortable and bright. I will probably try their sandwiches when I'm there next time.
I ordered the Caprese Panini. The sandwich would have been good if it weren't for the HUGE chunk of one tomato slice (instead of thinly slicing a couple of slices) between the cheese. The pesto was good and there was a welcomed sweetness somewhere in there. I think I remember reading that it was honey. Lastly, I asked for sourdough and got some sort of whole-grain. What can I say? Listening is a lost art... I didn't complain. I was well into the second half of my sandwich before I even noticed. The side pasta salad was really good.
I might go back and try something else.
I go here for one thing-the multi grain bread. Baked daily, fresh, sliced on request, under $5 and it's the best I've had.
Tried the scones too and they were great.
Seems a lot of whining about this place-but it's a bakery, not a coffee shop, not a diner, and that's how I rated this.
I don't understand why this place has only a three star rating.
The food is DELICIOUS and the staff is super friendly. I just don't know what else people are looking for. The decor is a little institutional, and the prices aren't the cheapest, but they're not serving subway sandwiches or McDonald's cookie in a box.
They brew Metropolis coffee and have no espresso (two strikes against them), but they make amazing bread and offer a bottomless cup for $2.
Maybe I'm looking for different things of a bakery than most, but I'm a big fan of this spot.
With their Andy Warhol-esque pop art adorning the walls, baked goods/cakes catching my eye, and roaring 20's music blasting throughout the spacious environment - Flourish is the place to be seen with a friend for coffee-time.
Sure, their prices may seem a little steep (about $8 bucks for a panini? - it better come with a rebate...), but the environment and service make up for it.
Their Monte-cristo panini, which came with a side of potato salad, is pretty decent. I would have liked it to come with melted cheese over the sandwich - but my body would have said otherwise. The environment and service is very friendly (kudos goes to the cash register lady for letting me borrow a pen while I was apartment hunting).
Go here if you want your muffin fix for the week.
After the ordeal that I went through with this place in my whoopie pie quest (see previous update), I was chagrined to walk in two of the last three Sundays to find a whole basketful of the things. So even though they made me a giant one before (see photo), I wanted to try the regular whoopie pies.
First off, they have "flavors." I am a whoopie pie purist and do not accept "flavors" of whoopie pies. Even my favorite place to get them back home has pumpkin, mint, etc but I shun them. Actually...in the middle of writing that sentence, I just remembered that I tried a mint one last summer because I am a sucker for anything chocolate/mint. So, my standards aren't what they once were. Never mind.
Flourish sells regular whoopie pies plus ones with chocolate icing and peanut butter icing. I admit to buying a double-chocolate one in a(nother) moment of weakness. The regular whoopie pie is DAMN close to the real thing for which I have been searching all over Chicago. The icing is a little stiff and not sugary enough, but the cake is very, very close. It's the texture which is so wrong among all these local whoopie-pie makers, but Flourish's is very nearly the exact right density. So chalk this up as an A- whoopie pie. Hooray!
I was ready to downgrade Flourish to three stars but I'm keeping them at four because of customer… Read more »
I loved this place when they first opened....now I would say it's good. Sometimes the cupcakes are a little dry and sometimes the rest of the pastries are nothing too special...but for old standbys, they're a solidly "good" option.
Also, the free wifi is great.
This is a favorite spot for me and my little group of brunch friends, that is when we grab brunch around Andersonville. No matter how much caffeine-filled drinks we down during brunch, we still like to come here to stretch and get more coffee and maybe greedily munch on a pastry.
The thing I love about this place is its size. Yes, size does matter. We love that there's always seating. Some people may be turned off by the warehouse like look with exposed ventilation pipes running across the ceiling. But I think it adds a little more charm. This is also the kind of place that you can go in, sit, read your paper, laugh and chat loudly with your friends, and no one will bother you, even if you don't order anything. But you should order something. Another neighborhood-y coffee shop that is a non-chain is worthy of your support. They always have delicious flavors of coffee, and they're always changing. As does their iced tea. There's a huge selection of pastries to choose from to go with your drink of choice.
While there's nothing extravagant about this place, the fact that I can find a seat and enjoy as much time as I want with my friends on a Sunday afternoon gives it a nice kick.
Have had a 9 inch cherry pie.
Have had chocolate chip, raspberry iced and lemon iced cookies.
Every is as good as it gets.
I want to keep going back but my diet says No No.
I just had the chance to stop into Flourish this week. I have to rave about the service, service, service! So many business's totally forget that customer service is what keeps people coming back even if they have an off experience.
From the moment I walked in I was greeted like family, offered a free sample and browsed the tempting selection. I ended up with a plain cup of joe and a mini cranberry almond muffin. You can tell a lot about a place that serves coffee when the plain coffee is so good your ready to kiss off Starbucks and Dunkin Doughnuts. Not that I think Starbucks is actually good coffee, but that's a topic for another day.
The muffin was really good. The slivered almonds on top were nice and crunchy and the muffin was soft and moist. The cranberries had the perfect tartness. I wished I'd ordered two.
And they didn't just sell cupcakes and sweets. But the cupcakes were reasonably prices (similar to Sweet Honey Bee). There was fresh baked bread that smelled heavenly and the space is actually very big. So big in fact that there was a group of people obviously having a morning meeting at one table in the back.
Lots to choose from, great product, fantastic service. I have to give it 5 stars and no doubt I'll be back.
Whenever I take the el to work, I look longingly at Flourish and wish I had time to stop in and check it out. Today I had enough time and I am glad I did. I enjoyed a really nice hot, looseleaf green tea and a ham and cheese croissant.
The bakery case was full of awesome looking things and the sandwich descriptions sound good. The service was friendly and quick. I was the only customer, while Dunkin' Donuts had a line out the door. I know I made a much better choice!
i know flourish reads these reviews because the sign by the bathroom tells me so...
my friends picked this place for a quick brunch on a saturday. when we got there was nowhere to sit. not because it was busy but because people were sitting one to each four person table sucking up flourish's internets. that was/still is annoying (come on people) but nothing to do with the actual establishment and not the reason i am giving a bad review.
i have celiac and there are a lot of things i cannot eat from a bakery obviously. i was just going to get fruit salad and some tea but i heard my friend asking what was in the the baked egg/casserole and it started to sound really good. so i chimed in to see if it was just eggs and the meat/cheese/veggies that the cashier mentioned. i asked if there was a crust and she said no. so i was happy and hungry and ready for my meal.
so we sit down and wait for our food.. food arrives. looks good. i put my fork through the egg bake and at the bottom there is a crust.
i know i probably sound whiny and annoying but you have to know your product and if you don't ask someone who does. and you are probably saying why the heck would you eat at a bakery if 98% of the food will make you sick. and my answer is because you are still a normal human being that can eat with other normal human beings you just have to be careful and ask questions.
i enjoyed my fruit salad and the fruit salad from my friends though.
Good coffee, pleasant people, soymilk on the milk bar. That earns them four stars for me.
I haven't eaten the food yet.
I love this place -- I always have to fight the urge to walk in and get some cookies walking from the train to my apt.
My faves are the pecan bars and any of the cakes -- once i had sweet potato pie from here that was RIDICULOUS.
The only thing is that the prices are a lil high -- totally worth it for what you're getting but still, 2 or 3 dollars for a cookie is hard to adjust to, even accounting for quality. Also, once or twice I've gotten a cookie that wasn't quite done cooking. So that explains my four stars... otherwise everything is very tasty and the staff is nice.
I've been a fan of Flourish since the day they opened.. but I have to say, that while their cookies are great, and the bread is usually great, it has declined lately in service. If I order more than 3 cookies to go, I ALWAYS come up short, but don't know it until I get home, and my receipt tends to not be put in the bag half the time as well. The few times I bring this up when I would return I was treated like I was trying to scam them out of a cookie.
Anyway, the panini is good, until you realize that they microwave it and only put it on the panini press long enough to get some marks on the bread. The salads tend to be pretty decent, and they hand make the sandwiches, which is always nice if you want them to change something around. I do love their breakfast fare, as well!
I will say though, they make some very good cakes, I've special ordered a few times, and was never less than very pleased.
They're a good neighborhood place, but they have some opportunities to improve. I should thank them.. since their service has gotten so sloppy, I am not in there every other day, in fact I go in once every 6-8 weeks now.
I keep coming back. I can't help it. Flourish has lots of yummy things. The selection is smaller but very well made. I like that they serve coffee & tea to help it go down, the perfect compliment. Not that into sandwiches at a bakery, I don't see the point. My advise, stick to what you're good at, which is really tasty baked goods!
The people who work here are nice. I went for breakfast twice. The most recent was Saturday morning at around 8 am, and we were the first ones there. I had an Egg Bake which sounded all yummy but wasn't, just bland and lacking flavor. It wasn't very hot either but I ate it and was too hungry/lazy to complain. Then some spill with the decaf coffee had my friend wait and wait for them to make more. She was also underwhelmed with her choice, I think she had a pecan sticky bun.
Not significant complaints by any means but enough to make the experience not worth repeating.
I ordered catering by Flourish for my son's baptism. We got sandwiches, side salads, large salad platters, a quiche, and of course, yummy dessert trays of dessert bars and pieces of cake.
It was DELICIOUS. It was fresh. It was presented beautifully. It was ready on time. It was really reasonably priced.
The people I dealt with at Flourish were extremely professional and friendly.
Update on my update: I'm now a semi-regular customer, for better (so TASTY) and worse (my ass, it GROWS!).
If you can get into this place before noon, you will find a treasure trove of fresh, mouthwatering baked goods, including seasonally-decorated sugar cookies, pretty, mini-versions of their delicious cakes, a couple of pies, and some damn fine monkey bread. Because this is a cafe as well as a bake shop (and as such, they keep cafe hours rather than limited bakery hours), you may find some things are less fresh later in the day. Cookies, cake slices and cupcakes are still a treat at 8pm, but drier goods (Like scones), if they're still around, might be best left in the case.
Whenever you go, if they have those cherry rosemary cookies, get one or six. Absolutely fantastic.
I actually haven't eaten in at Flourish, but the company that I work for has used the bakery for… Read more »
Everyone had been raving about Flourish so I had to try it. I looked at their menu online and the pot pies looked great. The site said you could call it in, they'd make it and then you could pick it up when it's ready. I tried calling and couldn't get anyone on the phone to make me a pot pie!
I decided to try again today and still couldn't get them on the phone. My boss offered to pick up lunch and he was going to Flourish (physically going in) so he got me a sandwich. Lucky he paid, because the prices are extremely high, and the sandwich I got was not worth it. I had the california turkey which sounds awesome in theory with it's herb cream cheese and avocado, but it was so soggy and unsatisfying. The bread was mushy, there was hardly any meat in it, the cream cheese made the sandwich stick to your teeth and the avocado was actually mashed and was already brown by the time they handed it to me. Maybe I'll try breakfast next time, but lunch is out of the question.
UPDATE: I have tried the cupcakes and they are delicious. Love the lemon and the red velvet. They are the new birthday cake at the office. And you can't beat the 1/2 price end of day breads and pastries.
Conveniently located between my home and L stop, I enjoy this bright spot on Bryn Mawr. The staff is always helpful and though I haven't tried all the pastries and am not a cupcake fiend, the bread is worth going for. The multigrain and baguettes are my favorites. I buy the day old and it lasts and lasts. I also enjoyed the Donkey vs. Elephant cookie race during the election, a delicious way to participate in the democratic process. Thanks for being in my 'hood!
Well well well. Flourish.
Why did I choose thee?
You were close to my house, and I'm sick of going on dates in bars. So I figured:
a)If we connected, we would both be sober...and so its more legit
b)Good lighting...no hiding signs of aging or grey hairs
c)I could drink tea
d)If the date sucked, I could run home and lock the door
e)Why not?
I thought the place was cute. The display cases were lacking in goodies. Granted, it was 430 on a Saturday. But still. Looking in the cases, I thought I might have been in London during the War.
(And yes, I do like to pretend its 1940...but not when I go out on a date)
We had good conversation, it was very quiet in there. Too quiet. I was worried someone would eavesdrop on our conversation, and I would be revealed as a desperate single man looking for love in all the wrong places.
I do say, I enjoyed their loose leaf tea selection. It was very tasty on a chilly day.
While I don't know if this was a great spot for a first date, its totally a great place to do a crossword puzzle and have some tea and a cookie.
Check it out. Better yet, ask me on a date and I'll go with you.
PS Only if you are a hot, single gay guy.
Valentine's Day Offer
Neighborhood: Rogers Park
Valentine Special
Neighborhood: Lakeview
Neighborhood: Edgewater
Category: Delis
Neighborhood: Edgewater
Category: Desserts
Neighborhood: Edgewater
Category: Pizza
Neighborhood: Edgewater
Category: Japanese
Neighborhood: Edgewater
Category: Bakeries
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