Blank Street Coffee plans first Chicago cafe in former Wicker Park Starbucks Reserve

Blank Street Coffee, the New York-based matcha and coffee chain that began as a cart in Brooklyn in 2020, is preparing its first Chicago cafe at 1588 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Wicker Park. The space is the former Starbucks Reserve at the six-way intersection of North, Damen and Milwaukee avenues, which Starbucks closed about a year ago.

Crain’s Chicago Business first reported the plan on September 30, according to Hoodline. What Now Chicago, crediting Block Club Chicago, and Time Out Chicago, crediting Crain’s, have since placed the cafe at the same Milwaukee Avenue address. No opening date has been announced. What Now Chicago reported on October 1 that the outlet had asked Blank Street for comment and was still waiting on an answer.

The storefront sits in Wicker Park, directly across from the Damen stop on the CTA Blue Line, according to Time Out. Starbucks held the corner for more than two decades, and the coffee giant’s arrival there in the early 2000s drew protests.

Blank Street at a glance

The company is six years old and has grown quickly. These basics come from Blank Street’s own website and recent coverage.

• Blank Street launched in August 2020 with a small coffee cart in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, according to the company’s website.
• Vinay Menda and Issam Freiha founded the company, Daily Coffee News reported.
• Blank Street has more than 100 shops across the US and the UK, according to the company’s website.
• The first Los Angeles-area cafe opened in Studio City on August 12, 2026, as the chain’s 106th location worldwide, according to Daily Coffee News.
• Blank Street raised $105 million in August 2026 in a round led by the investment firm General Atlantic, Axios reported.

What Blank Street sells

Matcha is the main event. The menu on Blank Street’s website lists 14 signature drinks, and nine of them are matcha drinks. The fall specials are a cinnamon bun matcha, a cinnamon bun latte, a harvest chai matcha and a harvest chai latte. The rest of the list runs from a shaken vanilla bean matcha and a shaken vanilla bean cold brew to blondie, daydream, blueberry, strawberry shortcake and white chocolate versions, plus a plain matcha latte. Time Out notes that the chain also makes standard espresso drinks and cold brew.

The website does not post drink prices. Every order button on the menu page sends customers to the Blank Street app. The company’s online shop does list prices for take-home goods.

• Ceremonial matcha powder costs $32.
• Bags of the Lighter Roast, Darker Roast and Decaf coffee blends cost $18 each.
• The Sleeve, a sleeve for iced drinks, costs $18.

The shop format is part of the pitch. Blank Street built the business on small grab-and-go cafes that make drinks on Swiss-made Eversys machines, which let the company schedule fewer workers per shift than competitors while paying them more, Forbes reported in 2023. The small footprint also holds down rent. On the company’s website, Blank Street describes the goal as coffee and matcha at “affordable prices in every neighborhood.”

The Chicago plan follows a large funding round. Axios reported on August 24 that the $105 million included $75 million in new capital and $30 million in secondary sales, and cited a Financial Times report that valued Blank Street at about $650 million. Axios said the money was expected to pay for expansion on the West Coast. Neither Axios nor Daily Coffee News mentioned Chicago in their coverage of the round.

City records show no Blank Street filings yet

As of the city’s October 6 data update, Chicago’s building permit records showed no permit issued for a Blank Street build-out at 1588 N. Milwaukee. The most recent permit on file for the address dates to May 2022, when Starbucks replaced a rooftop split-system unit. A search of the city’s business license records turned up no license under the Blank Street name anywhere in Chicago.

The same records still list Starbucks at the corner. The city’s active license list shows a retail food license for Starbucks Coffee #2443 at the address, with a two-year term that began April 16, 2025, and runs through April 15, 2027. The records show Starbucks holding a license there since at least 2002.

More than two decades of Starbucks on the corner

The arrival of Starbucks was not quiet. Protesters angry about a national chain moving in, and about the closing of Cafe Cafeina, the independent cafe that came before Starbucks, shattered the store’s windows, DNAinfo reported in 2015, citing earlier reports.

That first store was small, about 600 square feet with a few chairs. In late 2015, Starbucks signed a lease to roughly triple the space by taking over part of a former shoe store next door, according to DNAinfo, and the company applied for a liquor license for an evening menu. Building owner Marshall Black told DNAinfo the deal took about two years of planning. The city issued a permit for the interior renovation and expansion on February 10, 2016, with a reported cost of $452,154.

The cafe closed for renovation on January 17, 2017, and reopened that February as Chicago’s first Starbucks Reserve bar and the company’s 13th, DNAinfo reported. The Reserve version seated up to 40 people, added an entrance on North Avenue and focused on small-batch coffee and a range of brewing methods. DNAinfo described the property as a triangular building from the 1880s.

The Reserve ran for about eight and a half years. In late September 2025, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol announced a restructuring that would shut stores that fell short of the company’s standards for the customer experience or did not look financially viable, NBC Chicago reported. Niccol said that “closing any location is difficult.” NBC’s list of likely Chicago closures, which Starbucks had not confirmed, included the store at North and Damen. On October 3, 2025, Time Out Chicago reported that a notice on the door at 1588 N. Milwaukee confirmed the Wicker Park Reserve was closing.

Another out-of-town chain at the intersection

Blank Street is heading into a neighborhood already arguing about chains. Axios Chicago reported in June that some Chicagoans were bristling at national bagel chains backed by investment firms, including Call Your Mother, the Washington, D.C., bagel shop that opened in May at 1615 N. Damen Ave., just north of the same intersection. Andrew Dana, a co-founder of Call Your Mother, told Axios his investment partners were aligned on keeping the core of the business the same. Blank Street’s August round, by contrast, was venture capital, Axios reported.

Getting there

The corner is easy to reach without a car. The Blue Line and three bus routes serve the intersection.

• The Damen stop on the CTA Blue Line’s O’Hare branch is directly across the intersection.
• The #56 Milwaukee bus runs along Milwaukee Avenue between Jefferson Park and Washington and Wabash in the Loop.
• The #72 North bus runs along North Avenue between Harlem Avenue and Clark Street.
• The #50 Damen bus runs along Damen Avenue between 35th and Archer on the South Side and Ashland and Clark on the North Side.

What happens next

Several steps stand between the empty storefront and a first matcha. Any cafe at the address will need a city retail food establishment license, and the premises must pass a public health inspection before that license is issued, according to the city’s licensing guidance. The license runs on a two-year term, and at least one employee with a city food service sanitation certificate has to be on site at all times.

Blank Street has not announced hours, a phone number or an opening date for the Chicago cafe. Time Out’s web headline for its October 6 story says the cafe is coming this fall, but the story itself says no opening date has been set.

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