"From the beginning, the concept was to be a place where people could hang out and escape all the craziness of the world," Riley Brown told Eater Chicago on September 2. That was the day he and Hannah Grossman opened Dewey's Café at 2036 W. Roscoe St. It opened with a short day: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday.
Seven weeks later, Colectivo Coffee scheduled its Roscoe Village opening for 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, October 21, at 2032 W. Roscoe, on the same side of the same block. Its posted hours are 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., every day.
Lay their schedules beside the cafés already on Roscoe and the two newcomers cover different parts of the week. Between them, they fill the early mornings, the early evenings, and the Mondays and Tuesdays the street had mostly left to a couple of rooms.
Both rooms have been here before, in other forms
Neither café needed a new building. Each moved into a storefront with its own Roscoe Street history.
The Colectivo space was the Roscoe Village location of Hot Woks Cool Sushi, the pan-Asian spot known for stir-fry noodles and maki rolls. Eater Chicago's November 2025 closings roundup reported that location had closed after its owners retired. The Irving Park location stayed open and extended its delivery zone to Damen Avenue to keep serving former Roscoe Village customers. So a full-service dinner spot is turning into an all-day coffee counter, and the posted hours at that address start about as early as any on the block.
Dewey's address has done coffee before. In 2017, Eater Chicago reported that Brix Catering and Events had opened Domaine, an event venue at 2036 W. Roscoe, with a coffee-and-pastry window out front. Brown and Grossman took over the space in early 2025. They worked with Chicago's Siren Betty Design to turn the old catering storage area into a front room of earth tones, natural wood and plants, with couches and rotating local art in the back. Outside, the only sign is a small hand-painted one.
Their timelines differ just as much. Dewey's spent a year and a half between getting the keys and opening. Colectivo announced its opening date one week before its scheduled opening.
The posted hours, side by side
Roscoe Street already had a dense row of daytime cafés before either newcomer arrived. A Starbucks sits at the southeast corner of Roscoe and Seeley, and Same Same Thai is across the street, according to What Now Chicago. Here is what each of the other cafés on the stretch lists for itself.
| Café | Address | Posted hours |
|---|---|---|
| Kitsch'n on Roscoe | 2005 W. Roscoe | Breakfast, lunch and brunch, seven days a week |
| The Bakehouse Chicago | 2009 W. Roscoe | Daily, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Colectivo Coffee | 2032 W. Roscoe | Daily, 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. |
| Dewey's Café | 2036 W. Roscoe | Wednesday to Sunday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at opening |
| Lucy's Cafe | 2100 W. Roscoe | Wednesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
Sources for the rows: Kitsch'n on Roscoe, The Bakehouse Chicago, Colectivo, Eater Chicago on Dewey's and Lucy's Cafe.
Colectivo opens half an hour before The Bakehouse's 7 a.m. start and closes half an hour after its 6 p.m. close. Dewey's opens two and a half hours after Colectivo and closes three and a half hours earlier. Lucy's posted hours look a lot like Dewey's: a late-morning start, an early-afternoon finish, and dark days early in the week.
Monday and Tuesday are where the block changed most
Before Colectivo, a Monday walk down the 2000 block went like this. Lucy's was closed, and the address that is now Dewey's had no café. Today Dewey's and Lucy's are both still closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, based on their posted days. Of the cafés with posted hours, The Bakehouse covered those two days with its daily 7-to-6 schedule, and Kitsch'n lists service seven days a week.
Starting October 21, Colectivo's posted schedule adds a third room open every day at mid-block, with an earlier start than any other café hours posted on the street. For someone heading to a train before 7 a.m., or wanting a seat with a laptop at 5:30 on a Tuesday, that schedule roughly doubles the block's options.
That is also why Dewey's and Colectivo are a poor match for a head-to-head comparison. By the hours Dewey's opened with, the two overlap only from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., five days a week. The rest of Colectivo's 84 weekly hours fall when Dewey's is closed.
Their menus point in different directions too
The menus split the same way the schedules do.
Dewey's opened with mornings in mind. It serves vegan doughnuts from Beacon, homemade cookies and coffee made with Metric Coffee beans. Oat milk is the default, and soy, coconut and corn milks cost nothing extra. Teas come from Volition, and the beer list includes Middle Brown and Hopewell. The menu leaves out nuts, dairy and meat for now. Brown, who previously cooked at Oriole, described it to Eater as a chance to cook for people who have often felt left out at restaurants. One of the planned sandwiches starts with cured and smoked carrots and a sunflower-seed spread on Publican Quality Bread's 1979 multigrain. Brown said it's the only bread the kitchen won't bake in-house.
The plan Eater reported in September was a slow build. First comes lunch service starting at noon with sandwiches and salads, once kitchen repairs are done. Then a 3-to-6 p.m. happy hour with small plates. Then dinner a couple of nights a week sometime next year. The room seats 25, with eight more patio seats planned for next summer. If that happy hour arrives, Dewey's would be open until 6 p.m., the same closing time as The Bakehouse and half an hour before Colectivo.
Colectivo arrives with a fixed format: espresso drinks, freshly roasted coffee, cold brew on tap, all-day breakfast, lunch sandwiches and house-made bakery items. Its announced opening-day lineup featured the Potato Bacon Burrito and scratch-made English muffins, a free Roscoe Village tote while supplies lasted, and a limited Guest Artist coffee bag by Chicago artist Emma McKee. Roscoe is Colectivo's eighth Chicago-area café and its 24th overall. It follows a recent opening at 3258 N. Southport Ave. in Lakeview, What Now Chicago reported in July.
A plant-forward room that grows into lunch, happy hour and maybe dinner, with the hours to match, now shares a block with a regional roaster set up for early commuters and a 12-hour day, seven days a week.
How the week shakes out on this block
Using only the hours each café has posted:
- Before 7 a.m., any day: Colectivo at 2032 W. Roscoe is the café with the earliest posted start, at 6:30.
- Weekday mid-morning, Wednesday to Friday: Dewey's, The Bakehouse, Colectivo and Kitsch'n are all open by 9, and Lucy's joins at 10.
- Monday or Tuesday lunch: The Bakehouse, Colectivo and Kitsch'n. Dewey's and Lucy's are closed.
- Weekend brunch: Every café in the table is serving. Lucy's and Dewey's both open at 9 on Saturday and Sunday.
- After 3 p.m. on a weekday: The Bakehouse until 6 and Colectivo until 6:30. Dewey's planned happy hour would add a third option once it launches.
One date on the calendar uses that early window. The Northcenter Chamber of Commerce's free Halloween Trick-or-Treat in Northcenter runs Saturday, October 31, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's centered on Northcenter Town Square at 4100 N. Damen Ave., with nearby businesses taking part, plus hay rides and costume contests. On that Saturday, Colectivo opens at 6:30, and Dewey's and Lucy's open at 9 based on their posted weekend hours. All three are open well before the first costume contest starts up Damen.
Storefront turnover like this, with a closed restaurant becoming an all-day café and a catering space becoming a daytime restaurant, shows how a commercial block is being used, often before it shows up in any sales data. If you own near Roscoe Street, or you're weighing a property where the corner businesses matter, John Charmelo can walk you through what the block's recent changes mean for your address. Request a Local Market Review.
