BREAKING NEWS!!

Important breaking news:

I got a SNUGGIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (delivered to the Unicorn)

woo hoo!

trivia champs!

ANNOUNCING VICTORY!!!

A team of Unicorns won pub trivia on Tuesday night, December 08, at Tommy Nevin’s!  Congratulations to us!  yahoo!

if ever in bloomington, illinois…

If ever in Bloomington, Illinois, and wanting the absolute most wonderful tea I’ve ever tasted, go to Poquette’s.  On Main Street, the storefront is specialty gift shop, and the secret glory is the back room.  Filled with teas, brought directly from China by the owner, Kim.  The first time I went, I sat for four hours drinking infusion after infusion of two teas with a few friends and the owner.  When I drink this tea I think I am healing.  There is also Vietnamese coffee!  heavenly!

serious business.

hummus is serious stuff.

This, that and the other thing

Sorry to be so lax on the blogging– I’m trying to soak up as much sun as possible before our fabled mid-west winter hits again.  But there are some exciting things a-brewin’ at the little Uni and some exciting news to pass on, too (and, you know, my requisite “the hours are changing blah blah” part of the post.)

For starters, welcome to new barista Hillary!  She joins us from Dollop and already recognizes a couple of you Northsiders, so come give her an official Unicorn hello.

Resident musician and nice guy Steve Rashid of Cafe Underscore fame won a Chicago Emmy last week for his work scoring a documentary on midwest submarines.  Come give him a pat on the back after saying hello to Hillary!

We’re closing at 8pm on Friday so you all can have dinner with family and friends, go to movies, have a drink, or whatever it is you do on Friday nights when you aren’t at the Unicorn Cafe.  Enjoy your time off!  You earned it!

Will there be snow next week? The week after?  Eep, I am getting nervous!  Give a West Coast gal some winter-tips, please!

Halloween!

Hey Y’all,

It’s Halloween tomorrow and for the Unicorn that means a few things: everyone who works here has some exciting party to attend and isn’t up for working Saturday night (so WE”LL BE CLOSING AT 6PM to get our spooky-groove on) and we’ll be giving away TREATS to anyone who dresses up.  And put some effort into it, please! Halloween is a time of family and friends, a time to spread joy to the world… a hark the herald fairies sing, sort of thing, you get me?  So dress your Halloween-best and get in here before 6.

Here are some wiki-how pages to boost your creativity:

How to make a Tulle Skirt

How to make a mask using foil and duct tape

Aside from the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Halloween is also the last Evanston Farmer’s Market, so get some delicatata squash before it’s too late!

RIP Tor

The Unicorn is incredibly saddened by the news that Tor Faegre, artist, peace activist, and one of our favorite customers passed away last night after his battle with Leukemia.  Tor was such an asset to our community and never failed to bring a smile to our faces.  He was a very talented artist and his work, which is showing in the Unicorn this month, is certainly some of the most popular we’ve ever had adorn our walls.  Our hearts, thoughts, and sympathy are with his friends and family.  We will miss him greatly.

Our most media-savvy NUnicorn is at it again

After his incredibly profound insights on our woebegone youth became international news in the NYT, delightful NUnicorn Aaron couldn’t keep his hands out of the 15 minutes-of-fame-jar and now gets his banter on for People.com.  Check out his show, The Intern Asks and get a look at what Chicago-ites are saying about the latest (and greatest?) celebrity foibles.

Revised Hours

Ok Ok Ok.  I swear the blog does NOT exist simply as a means for me to change the hours on you guys at every whim or fancy, but alas, here we go again…  The Unicorn will now be open:

Monday through Friday from 6:30am-10pm

Saturday from 6:30am-8pm

Sunday from 7:30am- 8pm.

Agreeable?  Let me know; there’s always room for one more blog post!

OMG ESPRESSO!

Machines need people.  Machines with the sole purpose of providing for people even need people.  And machines need more than just a little sweet lovin’ every day.  Some people feel this way about cars, we feel this way about our espresso machine.  An espresso machine, especially one used as often as ours, needs a lot of attention.  Aside from rinsing between each shot pulled, we “backflush” the machine between shifts (shoot clean water through its innards to clean out coffee gunk) and give it a deep cleaning each night.  But just like a well-loved and relied upon automobile, the espresso machine requires tune-ups every now and again.  And BOY do the shots taste awesome after we have a pro come in and give the machine some well-deserved attention.  And guess what?  We did that yesterday, which means you should come in today and get some of the tastiest espresso in town!