Filter Cafe

Great place to study. A lot of room if you beat the crowd. Since there is a lot of room, a lot of people come here to study. A lot of tables and a lot of couches. Access to WIFI.
Everyone is pretty quiet for the most part.
The coffee is pretty good.
The food is average. I appreciate the breakfast all day, but it’s not great.

I come here everyday and get an iced coffee. Only reason I wake up in the morning is to get my fix at filter!
Great food. High speed internet. Good working spaces. Good music. I would live here if they would let me.

Keep coming back because it’s so close to my house, good music and I can always find a seat to do work BUT they are very expensive for what you get. The coffee and food is good… but just a little too pricey.

Excellent coffee, excellent food, eclectic design and friendly staff… what else do you want?

We really liked this place. We snuck in to get out of the rain and was amazed that such a large coffeehouse was packed yet soooo quiet. Comfy couches, easy atmosphere, good latte and warmth from the rain. The perfect kind of place I’m looking for when i’m touring a city and just needed a little downtime. Although we didn’t have any food it looked good!

Amazing space! Good for studying and just hanging out honestly. It’s nice to invite a few friends for some coffee and relaxing. My favors aspect is the amount of comfortable seats it’s like heaven!

Comfortable and ample seating, extensive menu and lots of tea choices (I don’t drink coffee). If I lived in Chicago, I’d be here all the time. As a traveller, I’ve been here a couple of times already.

A quintessentially hipster coffee shop with good, but not great espresso and a vibe that’s difficult to describe. It’s definitely eclectic and artist loft like. On one hand you feel like you’re in a coffee shop, on the other, you could be on your friend’s couch.
It looks like a lot of people here were working remotely and/​or studying. It seems like a good spot for that and they have food and free wifi. Service was friendly. I like the place and would return.

Great place for food and coffee. The menu is extensive. Breakfast all day.
A really nice lounge vibe. Open late hours.
One of my favourite places to hang out. A must go!

Oh Filter, how our relationship has changed over the years…
So, this will date me. But I remember when Filter was at the corner of Milwaukee and Damen. Those were the good ol’ days. Grungier music, grungier bathrooms, local art for sale.
Things that old Filter did well:
1) Higher quality food!
Filter used to make their goat cheese pesto sandwich with really thick-​cut multigrain toast that was BATTERED in butter to a perfecto crisp. I don’t know what happened but there just isn’t the same attention to the bread and toast factor. Not sure if it’s a different oven and the same effect just isn’t possible anymore, but it’s hard to appreciate a depreciation in quality.
2) Cool special drinks.
Maybe we live in a more PC world these days, but Filter used to have a drink called the Che Guava (ra). It was ice tea, guava syrup, and OJ. Literally TO DIE FOR. But overall, more interesting specials as such. More naming things creatively. Now they have dishes called «Gypsy Hash.» (Actually somewhat offensive AND boring, if that’s possible).
Overall, it’s still a solid coffee shop. It’s a big space, lots of seating, and they are a coffee shop with lots of food. SO I’m not complaining. I’m just reminiscing about better days. Filter used to be a 5-​star establishment. Now it’s just a-​okay. Meh.

Hated every second of being here
The settings are beyond uncomfortable, I’m barely 100 pounds and I just fell into the rottenness of those seats, I feel I need a shower for touching those fabrics.
The Internet is very slow, don’t dream of getting any work done both the basic Internet and the so called backup fail to function. I personally wasted an hour of my life.
I just had tea and it looked like something you can buy from the airport, but more expensive.

Really cool spot
Large floor space and well kept
Iced coffee hit the spot
They have an impressive food menu and tasty homemade munchies
My new go to coffee spot when on that stretch of Milwaukee near Ashland

I feel like it’s a bit unfair to review Filter since their menu is so huge and I haven’t tried any of the food, so take my star rating with a grain of salt.
Pros:
+ Awesome vibe, really unique, good music
+ Wifi
+ Full menu
+ Smoothies were reasonably priced and I devoured my pint-​sized mango pineapple smoothie in record time
Cons:
+ Really, really bitter coffee
+ Fee for credit card charges under $ 10
I would definitely give this place 4 or 5 stars if the coffee was better, but it was rather undrinkable. I’m hoping my cup was a fluke. So maybe just come here for the other food and drinks…

Lots of my teachers that live in or near the wicker park area love coming here. This place is decorated with a mixture of tables and sofas that just make you feel so cozy! There are lamps everywhere so the lighting is soft and not harsh like other places. There’s free wifi and beautiful big windows that you can sit next to if you so please. It can get a little hot but if you don’t mind then do it! There’s also a nice mix of cold and hot drinks for moderate prices. You can also grab a variety of snacks and meals to eat here which is nice. It’s really an all purpose coffeehouse that you should check out if you’re in the Wicker Park area!

Good:
Fast wifi
Lots of couches
Lots of outlets
Your grandmas basement
They do sell a big variety of food in case you were lazy to walk nearby for better food
Bad:
Food and coffee are overpriced and not consistent as well as credit card charges for anything under $ 10
No air — There are days where air conditioning is a must — a sweaty environment is not my ideal

This place was not bad. The best part is that they open at 7am with their full breakfast menu, and you can’t get cooked food anywhere else nearby during that time. I didn’t try the coffee.
I got the lox platter. It was not the best had. The wheat bagel was nice and soft, not a dense bagel texture. The cream cheese was prepackaged and kind of small. it was enough for me, but for those cream cheese lovers, make sure you ask for more. There was also lettuce, capers, red onion, and sliced tomatoes in the platter, which was all honestly impossible to fit into one bagel sandwich (may not be a bad thing). The 3 stars though, mainly goes to the smoked salmon itself. It was the red, I believe sockeye Salmon, and it was way too fishy. There wasn’t allot of it, maybe 3oz, and they were all stuck together with a mushy texture.
Also got a side of hash browns, and they smelled good, but were overcooked, on the dry side, and didn’t have much flavor or saltiness to them. Tasted like hollow, cube-​shaped air puffs, with a little bit of starch and chewy skin.
Wasn’t a fan of the smoked salmon or hash browns, but they have a good atmosphere and nice service, so I’ll probably try and come back again, especially if I need breakfast at 7am in Wicker Park.

Filter Café is an awesome huge coffee shop/​café with great vegan food, good coffee, friendly folks, lots of outlets, clean bathrooms, and to put a cherry on top they were playing good music too!
How can you go wrong in a place like this… mmmm You can’t this was the perfect spot to work, while on the road in Chicago!
Internet was fast, so was the service! Perfect find in the big city!

Wow, the hipster hate is strong in this one, my son.
Never mind the usual hipster barista snotty «I’m only talking to you because I have to» demeanor. I buy a snack. Some guy walks out of the restroom saying it was broken. No one’s coming out of the other one. I decide the broken restroom might warrant the attention of the baristas. I go to the steamer and wait to get one’s attention. Both of them make a point to look right through me every time they get a free moment, like I’m not there.
Just, fuck you guys. What a shitty attitude from the people who run this place. Your lacking, overpriced snack and food selection isn’t that great either.
Go down the street to one of the other half dozen coffee+food places, where you may or may not get better sustenance or find better seating, but at least you won’t be treated like a complete piece of shit by the staff.
Hey staffers, go ahead and get a few friends to astroturf this page, like other crappy businesses do. Karma doesn’t care. And maybe we should call the health department about that broken restroom you clearly didn’t give a shit about.

Cross the Goodwill furniture department with a great café and you get Filter. Rock on, I’m glad to see that someone has an eye for the inherent beauty and oddball kookiness of 60s/​70s era midcentury modern furniture and has combined various pieces to create this unusual space. Instead of their usual destination of the city landfill, the furniture and décor get a second life as elements of one of the coolest cafes I’ve ever visited. Cafes come in many shapes and forms (modernist Scandinavian, science-​geek, warm wood and leather, and so forth) but I’ve never seen a café that combines so many flowered, striped, and paisley patterned pieces (talk about «Couches Gone Bad», next on Maury), yet comes out the other end as one of the most interesting working and sitting places I’ve seen.
Instead of feeling like you’re in hell’s waiting room, the atmosphere is of comfort and visual interest, almost as if you’re in a 60s era sitcom when technology was the key to the future and your Mom is coming from the formica topped kitchen to offer you a bowl of day-​glo orange Mac and Cheese and a green Jello fruit salad topped with Cool Whip while your family watches the NASA moon landing on TV. The exposed brick and huge windows go a long way in complementing and toning down the décor. Interesting artwork lines the walls, and unusual lighting completes the look.
Now the coffee. Yes, I spent the entire preceding two paragraphs going on about the aesthetics. So what about the coffee and food? Well I’m pleased to say that the plain drip coffee I had was very nice. Often it’s the case in these «good» or «hipster» cafes, coffeemaking has been elevated into some kind of mystical, ritualistic art with the baristas/​scientists/​high priests performing the steps of a sacred process, yet ultimately serving up underroasted or overextracted coffee. Filter served up a very good cup (a tad underroasted for my personal taste, but maybe that’s just me) of drip coffee that was rich, had a good rounded mouthfeel, and was very fresh. Their apple pie was great too, with a good flaky crust and lots of tangy tart apples. I would have preferred a different Dutch crumble topping (it appeared that they used some kind of granola topping) but that’s a minor quibble.
All of the above, plus the expansive seating area, free wifi, and friendly service makes Filter a top notch place to visit. I highly recommend it!

In Chicago for the weekend, my friend left me a note with a bunch of coffee shops to try out one being Filter.
I’m so happy that I went. I entered in to the shop and there was some really cool art and a great atmosphere. My kind of scene.
The staff is really friendly; I took my order to go. The iced coffee was one of the better ones I’ve had in a long time. While I was preparing my iced coffee, I was dying of laughter from the food puns that Filter has so ingeniously created for example The real skim shady. It doesn’t get better than that.
Even though I’m going for a big dinner tonight I felt that I should have some food since were not being seated until 1015. I had the curry chicken salad wrap and it was also probably one of the best ones I’ve ever had SO props to you filter.
If I have time I’m definitely coming back in before heading back to Boston.

Tolle Atmosphäre, guter Kaffee! Alles was man brauch an einem verregneten Tag in Chicago.