Fairgrounds Coffee Tea

Great atmosphere, delicious healthy food, and very personable staff! Will be back!

Good customer service and the food and drinks that I got were great. Loved the austin tacos

Always have the best experience here — BEST avocado toast in the city and great coffee and ambience! View menu

I visited on a snowy morning and I have to say, two words: BREAKFAST BURRITO. The eggs were wonderfully fluffy, and the vegetables and potatoes were seasoned and cooked just right! The avocado cream and salsa on the side were a nice touch too. I usually drink my coffee black, but they offer plenty of options. It’s a cozy spot, so take your time and enjoy — the staff are fantastic!

The espresso is decent, but it has a strong bitterness to it. The tea options are lackluster and are essentially the same as what you’d find in a big-box grocery store, whether in bags or loose leaf. The decor is lovely, but the music is always excessively loud, which makes it feel unwelcoming; I can only assume this is meant to deter customers from lingering too long. On the plus side, the music selection is great—diverse and of high quality—it's just played too loudly.

Similar to other reviews, the cold brew was very watered down. I tried the flight featuring salted caramel, mint chocolate, and nitro, while my girlfriend ordered the dirty matcha latte. The salted caramel had no coffee flavor and tasted overly artificial, the mint chocolate was diluted and didn't have much flavor, and the nitro was quite bitter, likely due to steeping for too long without the expected nitro effect. The matcha was decent, but I was surprised that no sweetener was offered. View menu

Really upsetting that Fairgrounds is still expanding. First off, they don’t sell anywhere close to exclusively fair trade coffee and their name at minimum is misleading to consumers. Secondly, they aren’t “fair” to their staff. At one location the two white shift leads had wages of several dollars more per hour than the two Black shift leads and their explanation for the discrepancy was that the Black shift leads were “less likable.” I was actively discouraged to not take a second job when a bet … – show

Stopped by here since its by my neighborhood and I saw some good pictures of the food here. It was a bit busy when I got there and plenty of people working on their computers and some reading books just relaxing. You get to order and they give you a number so you can sit and wait for your food to be sent to your table. Both the lady at the register and the lady who brought the food were nice. As for the food it was great, tried the Seoul Bowl and El Paso Bowl, I already had bought a drink at ano … – show

I am still in shock about this store. I am from Europe and was on a city trip to Chicago with friends. We were exploring the neighborhood around the Damen station and found this “fairgrounds” store. We entered the store on October 2, 2022 at 12:10 PM. There was a young man and a young woman in the store, besides us there was only one guest at the table. As we walked up to the counter, the man just looked at us briefly and then went back to playing with his phone, while the woman seemed annoyed b … – show View menu