The Blind Faith Cafe, located adjacent to the Blind Faith Bakery, features a dining room and a self-serve cafe. Both have a casual, comfortable atmosphere ideal for any occasion from a business lunch to a family dinner. All items on the Cafe’s menu are available in both sections of the restaurant.
Lined with wooden booths, potted plants, and walls adorned with colorful handmade quilts, the dining room has an ambiance that is both elegant and intimate. Big picture windows bring in bright light during the day, and at night patrons dine by candlelight.
If it’s a quick meal on the run you’re after, the self-serve counter is just the ticket. You order and pick up your meal, serve your own coffee and water, and bus your own dishes. You can also carry out any menu item.
At the self-serve counter, you’ll also find a variety of attractive, high-quality merchandise, including Blind Faith T-shirts, sweatshirts, glasses, and mugs.
The Blind Faith Cafe is owned by David Lipschutz, who bought the restaurant in 1982 and, with the hard work of his staff, built it into what it is today. A native of Evanston, David wanted to create a community place where people could gather and visit -- and enjoy good food. Knowing his guests would be both vegetarian and non-vegetarian, he developed a diverse menu that would cater to the full spectrum of diners.
“I wanted to create a sense of community in the restaurant,” David explained, “a place where everyone in the family could find what they want, despite their dietary needs and concerns. And it was important that vegetarian diners would be able to bring their friends, so they could choose a restaurant and the group wouldn’t groan!”
David’s interest in wholesome food was piqued at an early age when he worked at local natural food stores. He began his professional cooking career at the Bread Shop Kitchen making soups and sauces. After a few years in the catering business, he saw a niche for innovative vegetarian food.
“A limited number of vegetarian dishes are available in almost any restaurant,” David says, “but we offer creative and unusual meals not found in other venues.”
A strong believer that food in its natural, unprocessed state is full of flavor, David rejects the myth that healthy eating means giving up taste.
“I don’t want to tell anyone how to eat, but I do want to show them the healthy possibilities available to them.”
The Blind Faith Story starts in 1978. It is about three people, Ivan Newell, Fran Welch, and David Lipschutz, who didn’t know each other then but who, within two short years, would create what has become an Evanston landmark -- the Blind Faith Cafe. In the past 20-plus years, through the waning “hippie” days of the '70s, the beef-crazy '80’s, and the “PC” '90’s, the Blind Faith Cafe has managed not only to stay open, but to thrive as a quality eatery and a community meeting place.
It all started in the fall of 1978 when Ivan Newell, a philosophy student, traveled from Wooster, Massachusetts, to Evanston, Illinois, to attend Northwestern University. He and his black Labrador retriever arrived in his VW bus the day before classes started, and he went looking for a room to rent.
Fran Welch, a longtime Evanston resident, had recently divorced her husband and received the family house in the settlement, as well as the couple’s yellow Labrador retriever. With a mortgage still to pay, she put a notice up at Northwestern for a room to rent.
Ivan saw Fran’s notice and rented the room. The two shared many interests -- including their love of dogs -- and hit it off immediately. Several months later, Ivan moved again -- this time, from the rented room into Fran’s room. Fran and Ivan had fallen madly in love.
In the spring of 1979, Ivan quit school, and he and Fran decided to open a vegetarian restaurant. They had very little money, and even less experience running a restaurant. They wanted to open their restaurant in Evanston, and looked around locally, settling on a small restaurant on the southeast corner of Sherman Avenue and Dempster Street called the Evanston Snack Shop.
The Evanston Snack Shop was an old-fashioned “greasy spoon,” with bright orange booths and short-order service. Business was lagging and the owners were anxious to sell.
In September of 1979, Fran and Ivan bought the restaurant and the Blind Faith Cafe was born. The name, Blind Faith Cafe, came to the couple when a friend told them that they were going to have to have “blind faith” to open the restaurant with so little money and experience.
Fran, Ivan, and their only employee, Chris Hendricks, worked breakfast, lunch, and dinner for six weeks. The restaurant was getting positive feedback from the community, but its owners were wearing themselves out.
A mutual friend introduced the couple to the Cafe’s present owner, David Lipschutz. David was working in restaurants and catering facilities throughout Chicago but was feeling unfulfilled by his work. Vegetarian cuisine was a passion of David’s not shared by a great many restaurateurs. So in November 1979, David offered his services to help run the Blind Faith Cafe, and Fran and Ivan eagerly welcomed him. David worked breakfasts and lunches while Fran and Ivan worked dinners.
By the spring of 1982, Fran and Ivan had a new and growing family, and their passion for the hard work and long hours of restaurant management had waned. They offered to sell the restaurant to David and he accepted.
This was a great opportunity for David to make the changes he’d envisioned to the Cafe’s menu and operations. It was also a dream come true for him to own and operate a restaurant in his home town of Evanston.
Redecorating was first on the list. The old diner decor was replaced with a new, more contemporary look. The booths were reupholstered and new equipment was added. The menu was also enhanced with a number of creative new dishes. As a result, business increased and the Cafe flourished.
But in David’s mind there was still something missing. He wanted to broaden the appeal of the Cafe, which had become a “hippie hangout” of sorts. The restaurant was also getting small. There was constantly a line, and the seating area was cramped. So David started keeping his eyes open for available store fronts, hoping to find one in the same neighborhood.
When he learned that the Salvation Army was moving from its location just down the street on the 500 block of Dempster Street, he pitched his restaurant idea to the building’s owner. He got the lease, and in 1985, he gutted and remodeled the building.
In the new location, David did not want to lose the self-serve aspect to the previous Cafe, which he thought fostered a sense of community among the regular patrons. Customers would place their orders and when their meals were ready, they were called up to the window to get their food. They also bused their own tables. Everyone pitched in and worked, in a sense, for the Cafe. But David had always envisioned a more elegant, sit-down dining room.
So the new Blind Faith Cafe combined both concepts: the self-serve area and a dining room. The Cafe is still set up this way today, offering a bite to eat on the run or the opportunity to linger over a meal.
In its new home, the Blind Faith Cafe became even more successful. Business quadrupled, and the restaurant established itself as a mainstay of the Evanston community.
Ten years later, in October of 1992, the Cafe expanded again to include the Blind Faith Bakery. Located in the store front to the east of the Cafe, the bakery features a variety of natural breads and pastries.
More than twenty years after it got its start, the Blind Faith Cafe remains committed to offering fresh, wholesome, vegetarian food creatively prepared and served in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.
If you haven’t yet been to our restaurant, we hope you’ll give us a try. And if you have, we invite you to come back often. For the real Blind Faith Story is about the community -- and you.
