Lovely, Too

Cute little café. We popped in for a quick lunch. I got the Turkey pesto sandwich which I deconstructed. Yummy. The mixed greens with some type of balsamic reduction were very good. The baked goods in the case looked terrific.

Lovely, Too provided the wedding cake for my wedding a couple weeks ago and I can’t gush enough about how spectacular the cake they created for us was. I worked with Trisha to come up with the «dream» cake (3 tiers, pink buttercream, some texture) and she really exceeded expectations.
One of the big reasons why we choose Lovely is because they have some of the best buttercream I have ever tasted. My husband and I are super picky about buttercream and we find the super sweet stuff to be overkill. Lovely’s buttercream is light, fluffy, just a tiny bit sweet, not at all overpowering, and it worked so well with both of our cake flavors (red velvet with cream cheese and chocolate with chocolate buttercream and raspberry jam.) Our guests repeatedly mentioned how gorgeous the cake was and how it was some of the best they have ever had.
After our wedding cake experience, we’re already trying to find ways to get cake from Lovely, Too at every occasion possible.

Love this place! Very good coffee and a great selection of bakery items. Good place for grabbing something to go or sitting down. Free WiFi.

I worked with Lovely, Too (and Trisha!) to help provide a dessert table and small cake for my wedding on January 30^th. I live in the neighborhood and have visited Lovely, Too several times and adored everything I tasted, so I knew I had to find out if they could cater the dessert for my wedding.
Trisha set up a tasting for us and was super happy to accommodate some gluten-​free desserts (her rosemary rice cripies are DIVINE). We also got 4 different kinds of mini cupcakes, cheesecake bites, chocolate covered strawberries, brownies and blondies and (my husbands favorite) mini maple glazed bacon donuts. The cake she made was the perfect size and was delicious! Everyone raved over the desserts and many were gone even before dinner was! They were able to come out to our venue in Streamwood and drop everything off the day of.

I recently worked with Lovely, Too to cater a large lunch. The restaurant was really great to work with and wonderful working around some of our dietary preferences and restrictions. Everything was delivered on time and set up easily — the sandwiches were all hand-​labeled! Everyone raved about the food; we’ll definitely be working with them again!

This review is for a donut and whoopie pie. 4 stars for your donut, –25 for your «whoopie» pie. What do you call that rubbery patty in the middle of the wheat bread slabs? This was inedible. Please refrain from selling this, but if you insist on selling this please label it stale bread with rubber marshmallow slab.

As much as I miss the scones and breads at Flourish (their predecessor here), I initially wasn’t impressed with this place. On my last few visits, I think this place has been delivering for me more, as far as pastries and desserts go. I’ll have to try their food on a future visit.
Anyway, the things I have tried such as brownies, linzer (I think that’s what the German pastry I tried was called), and I think jalapeño corn bread or something along those lines was decent. I wish their closing time was slightly later just like the closing times were for Flourish, but I won’t deduct them a star over that.
I’ll reserve the 4^th star, once I see how their regular breakfast and lunch sandwiches, soups, and melts stack up. If it’s as good, I’ll up my rating of this place. So far so good, and it’s at 3.5 for now.

Okay, I’m going to start with my favorite thing about this place: cupcakes! They’re awesome. The frosting is rich and smooth, and the cake is moist and buttery. I don’t think you could go wrong with any flavor here.
The coffee prices are a little on the high side, but about average for the neighborhood. The only thing I didn’t like was they gave me a medium mocha when I ordered, and paid for, a large — and I didn’t notice until I was two blocks away — and when I ordered a chai latte, the barista said, right in front of me, «I hate making these things.»
That soured me a little, so I’m probably just going to stick to the cupcakes. I haven’t tried the cakes or pies, but they look delicious and I probably will in the future.

We decided to get our wedding cake from Lovely Too because we live in the area and we could not be more pleased with the entire process! Trisha, the Kitchen Manager and Custom Cake Specialist was so kind, friendly, and accommodating! We decided to get a pumpkin cake with «nearly naked» frosting and cream cheese frosting layers and it was SO GOOD. The delivery to the venue was on time and delivered by Trisha herself. We had a tasting with Trisha a month or two before and communicating with her was great through the entire process. It was nice to work with a smaller bakery because we felt like they knew us personally and that we were a priority. All of our guests loved the look and taste of the cake! Thanks Trisha and Lovely Too!

The cupcakes are refrigerated and therefore dry and tasteless, the coffee is meh, and the food is hit or miss. The service could be a lot better. Last time I was served really cold tomato bacon soup, the time before They didn’t ring up my muffin and they were super busy so I let it go and didn’t get to eat breakfast, and the time before that we waited 20 minutes for coffee because they forgot about us. The «veggie melt», and «the lovely» are really great sandwiches. I also really like the toast and jam flight that they have… that’s pretty cool and very affordable. I keep supporting Lovely because I like my money to go into local businesses and they have some really great food options, but they need to get it together. 9 times out of 10, I go in there and their employees looked bored or pissed off that they’re being inconvenienced by helping me. It’s just not a pleasant experience.

The coffee is delicious as well as their scones and croissants. High in price though which is a down side

Great place to get a coffee, something sweet, a substantial lunch, and some quality work done. Free WiFi. Great staff. Clean bathrooms. Nothing to complain about it. The Lovely Turkey Sandwich with pesto is really amazing. I get it with the mixed greens and am always quite full. When I have no fear of my caloric intake for the day, I get it with the potato salad with bacon, which is really quite good. I keep meaning to explore more of the menu, but that turkey sandwich keeps calling me back. Great, quiet spot on busy Byrn Mawr.

Stepping inside this little coffee shop, you almost instantly forget the hustle and bustle going on outside on Bryn Mawr Avenue. Looking for a quiet to study on a Thursday afternoon, this place hit the spot.
There are plenty of outlets and a variety of different sized tables to choose from, making this place feel appropriate for cranking out some solo studying or coming with a slightly larger party. I stayed for three hours and never felt rushed to leave which was really nice. The staff was friendly and accommodating, providing suggestions on their favorite drinks. I stuck with an iced coffee, but I appreciated the input! They have a wide variety of menu options, ranging from sandwiches to baked goods and all in a very affordable price range. They also offer freshly baked bread which I observed a few people come in and ask for & which smelled delicious!
Having spent some time in Andersonville over the past few weeks, this is the kind of place I’d like to frequent often. I will be stopping by Lovely, Too again sometime soon and next time with a friend or two!

A full array of freshly prepared pastries. I have tried several. The muffins are dense but moist and the fruit filled varieties burst with flavor. There are four or more croissants to choose from, both sweet and savory. Bite into their crispy layers and savor the buttery moist insides. There are many more pastries as well as sandwiches and quiches. Great place to meet up with a friend after a walk on the lakefront.

A cute place if you’re in the neighborhood, but not worth a substantial trip. They offer a variety of drinks, sandwiches, and baked goods. The serving of tea was nice and substantial and served in it’s own teapot.
The best baked good we tried was the turtle macaroon. It was absolutely delicious — a perfect exterior with a gooey middle. Unfortunately, the maple bacon donut was a little bit of a letdown — the bacon was great and the donut was pretty good, but the hard maple glaze made it hard to eat and a little overly sweet.
In all honesty, this place also got knocked down one star for service. While I was there I saw customers being repeatedly told to wait before placing their orders, even though the barista had previously been doing nothing, while other times customers had to call out to staff because no one was behind the counter/​register.

We love Lovely as a bakery and coffee shop anyway, but wanted to make a more distinct point about another positive: its wedding cakes!
Ordering a wedding cake from Lovely was a breeze. As fans of their Milwaukee Ave location, we’d done lunch, coffee, baked goods, breakfast all before, but we still marveled at our cake. Trisha and the cake team at Lovely worked with my wife and I to create the perfect, spare, beautiful cake. Most importantly, all 3 flavors (that’s lavender-​vanilla, chocolate raspberry, and carrot — we just couldn’t decide between the 3). Our cake tasting was maybe the most fun thing we did in all of wedding planning — such a calm, easy, fun experience in the Lovely Too shop
The cake was delivered in perfect condition, on time and in great shape. Our only complaint is that we’ve eaten it all!

This whole shop is airy and designed beautifully. There are so many great places to get coffee in the city, but I personally highly recommend this place.
I’m also trying to find a great coffee shop when I’m downtown staying with my sister for a stay-​cation. a.k.a ‘getting away from the suburbs weekend’. I do not want Starbucks, it’s played out! There is literally one right next to her condo but I rather a small non-​chain boutique coffee place.
Their coffee is great and is not extremely strong. They have many different choices. There’s only so much you can say about coffee. The space is very open and has nice large tables to sit and chat or study or evening have a meeting if you wanted to. The décor is beautiful and not all dark and boring and green like Starbucks. The overall environment is excellent! They have many baked goodies to choose from also, which is also a plus. Enjoy ;)

I stopped at Lovely, too today.
I ordered an old fashioned donut. Well, it was a really nice texture, it was very soft. It was maybe a little too soft. Now, I think baked goods need salt. This donut really didn’t have any salt, or much salt. I don’t make the donuts, so I’m not sure. I think these donuts could be great. The vanilla bean was nice.
I also ordered an Americano. It was fine.
I asked if they made pour-​over or how they made their coffee. The barista looked at me like I was a complete dick and became rather rude after I asked. No thank you or anything after I tipped and signed my check.
Also, during this whole exchange with the barista, another guy came over that worked there and asked him if he was ready for his cigarette. He said, «I would love a cigarette.»
Then I saw him walk out the front door and smoke his cig.
Boo, Lovely, too. You have such a cute shop. It’s a good location. Your employees are not friendly and the food and beverage were just ok. I would go back and try it again as long as I didn’t have to deal with this rude guy.

I’m not sure about this place. Perhaps the configuration of the seats or the ordering process or the location of the napkins and silverware, or the weird taste to the water that is available.
The turkey sandwich I ordered was decent. The mixed greens side felt a little «out of the bag.» It took a long time to get both. And only after an inquiry. And I was pretty hungry.
Here’s what gets me about this place. I am a non-​coffee drinker and wanted a diet coke. I saw regular Coke. I inquired, do you have Diet Coke? «Nope, just regular.» «Well,» I said, «Are you trying to say that High Fructose Corn Syrup is somehow a preferable obesity causing toxin to aspartame as a neuroexciter?» Flew over the heads of the absent hipsters attending to my order. It took two of them to figure out how to swipe my credit card. Really? I mean if you are going to make a holier-​than-​thou decision on behalf of your customers like that, at least don’t be a hypocrite about it. Those muffins aren’t that great for your health either.
I got water instead. Lemony weird water. Regular water not available. Only apparently forcefully flavored water.
The place was overrun by table hoarding laptoppers not really ordering anything. That’s an annoyance of mine, particularly for a place with minimal seating.
I’ll pass next time.

I am a sweet freak! Cookies, donuts, cupcakes-​oh, the choices!
A friend and I stopped into Lovely after a heavy brunch. After all, our delicious meal did not include sweets.
I purchased a variety of cookies and a blondie bar. My visiting family has declared the cookies to be delicious! I have enjoyed ½ of the gargantuan blondie bar and it’s only been a hour since purchase!
So thrilled to FINALLY duck in and try them out!