Jonathan Ory of Bad Wolf Coffee at Star Lounge Coffee Bar. (Photo: 312 Dining Diva)
In the late 1990s, there was a really cool coffeehouse in Roscoe Village called Kerouac Jack's, named after the famed novelist and poet. The colorful spot was popular for its regular poetry events and strong coffee, but unfortunately had some terrible pastries.
Coffee connoisseur Jonathan Ory doesn't remember Kerouac's, but he feels that the neighborhood is in desperate need of a good coffeehouse serving good pastries.
"You can get one or the other, but you cannot get both in this area and most parts in town," he says, adding, "That's why I want to open a coffeehouse."
When Ory opens Bad Wolf Coffee with wife Sarah in mid- to late-November a block away from the old Kerouac Jack's, his plan is to serve house-made pastries with coffee "the way it is supposed to be made."
The self-taught chef worked his way up from the bottom, taking jobs from busboy to dishwasher until he eventually found his way inside the kitchens of a number of highly regarded restaurants. He's had stints at the likes of the now-defunct, high-end Heat sushi restaurant, as well as Atlanta's Restaurant Eugene, Schwa, and most recently Momofuku Ko in New York.