beelove café

beelove café is the social enterprise coffee shop of the North Lawndale Employment Network at 1111 S. Homan Ave., across from the old Sears campus. NLEN bought the former Liberty Bank building in 2018 to consolidate the network’s job-training programs and add a Wintrust branch and a cafe; the pandemic pushed the opening to February 2021. The drinks are made with beelove raw honey from Sweet Beginnings, the honey and skincare business NLEN started in 2005 to employ people coming home from prison, and the counter also pours SenTEAmental Moods teas and sells pastries and lunch from local vendors. Meek Mill has visited, per the beelove site.

What to know

• The cafe is inside the North Lawndale Employment Network’s campus at 1111 S. Homan Ave., the former Liberty Bank building.
• Opened in February 2021 after a pandemic delay, per Austin Weekly News.
• Coffee and specialty drinks are sweetened with beelove raw Chicagoland honey from NLEN’s Sweet Beginnings hives.
• Sweet Beginnings, the honey business behind the cafe, was created in 2005 to employ formerly incarcerated residents, per the cafe’s site.
• Pastries and lunch items come from local vendors, and SenTEAmental Moods teas are on the menu.