The Morgan at Loyola Station : Luxury Living. Redefined.

Hidden in plain sight like the speakeasies of old, the Sauce and Bread Kitchen on the outskirts of Rogers Park is an icon of the organic and sustainable restaurant movement in Chicago. The Sauce and Bread Kitchen is the sum of all its parts, as it is the marriage of two local businesses Co-op sauce and Crumb Chicago, local efforts that specializes in sauces and baked goods respectively. Co-op Sauce is the brainchild of Mike Bancroft, who started the nonprofit organization Co-op image as a means for Chicago youths to experience the arts. The problem of financially sustaining the organization became an issue to which Bancroft began bottling and selling the hot sauce he made. What originally began as a means to fund the organization became, in Bancroft’s own words “bigger than we could control.” Bancroft’s flavorful sauces include but are not limited to hot sauce, BBQ sauce, salsa, and pasta sauces. His sauces became so widely successful not only did they manage to (continue to) fund Co-op image, but it put spotlighted Bancroft’s ability as a saucier. Bancroft’s business partner and girlfriend Anne Kostroski is a respectable franchise owner in her own right, having started Crumb, an organic bakery of which she is a baker and owner. Together they opened the Sauce and Bread Kitchen named after the proprietor’s two specialty products. Absolutely all of Sauce and Bread Kitchen’s ingredients are organic and come from local farmers all over the Midwest. According to Bancroft they try and stay “as local as can be” with some ingredients coming from South Dakota as “Illinois can’t grow as organically as they (South Dakota) can.” Everything from the grains in the bread, the tomatoes in the sauce and the meat come from organically sustainable farms.

The restaurant itself is nestled in a building off Clark Street, in-between Devon and Highland. Upon entry you are greeted with an aromatic wave of baked goods and spices. The restaurant has a very welcoming aura, it’s as if you’ve managed to walk into a relatives apartment and they’re about to make you a home cooked meal. A colorful blackboard presents the week’s menu to your right, and just before you is an assortment of baked goodies. To your left is a plethora of glass jars housing the different varieties of signature sauces (you can even sample some of them!) Behind the counter is a map of the Midwest that details each of the farms from which the restaurants ingredients derive. The restaurant is still just one gear of a larger machine, and for that reason the restaurant is only open on weekends from Thursday to Sunday. The restaurant specializes in breakfast and lunch food with the menu dipping into late afternoon lunch/early dinner features, the restaurant is also vegetarian friendly. The restaurants most popular item is “by and far” the Apple wood-smoked turkey sandwiches. The size of the restaurant is small-to-medium as Bancroft is trying to “get a feel for the area” and not bite off more than the business can chew when it comes to venue space. In addition to their kitchen being “in the other room” is also the “production facility” where the sauces and other products are made.

The Sauce and Bread Kitchen sets a fantastic standard for organic and sustainable restaurants. They use two staple products as a springboard to culinary perfection as simplicity is key with Sauce and Bread Kitchen. Sauce and Bread Kitchen is quickly becoming a neighborhood institution. Stop in, have some food and make conversation, you might even be so fortunate to be invited to their exclusive monthly Stew Supper Club. The Sauce and Bread Kitchen is located on 6338 N. Clark St, Chicago IL 60660 and is open from 8am to 8pm Thursday through Friday and 10am to 3pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Words and pictures by Max O’Kane