A triple threat downtown

When Strange Matter Coffee owner Cara Nader began planning the downtown location’s 2023 expansion, she considered expanding the shop’s food offerings from donuts to a full menu.

Fresh food from a kitchen goes over well with customers, she said, but she wasn’t raring to do it. She didn’t want Strange Matter’s food operation to be “secondary” to the coffee, as she said it is for many coffee shops, which can lose money on the kitchen side or offer mediocre products just to check that box.

That led her to seek advice from Aharon Hebert, co-owner of breakfast sandwich food truck Bangos and sub spot Babe’s Corner, on how to make a small food operation work. Eventually, that conversation turned into taking Bangos out of a food truck and into the Strange Matter kitchen, which was needed at night to bake donuts but available during the day.

More than two years later, their arrangement has blossomed, Hebert and Nader said. Customers get breakfast food with full quality, and Nader can stay focused on the coffee side of things. It’s been going so well that Hebert and co-owner Will Green recently decided to bring Babe’s in too.

Babe’s Corner opened inside Strange Matter this week, serving the same subs and ice cream that customers who frequented the former Michigan Ave. location have come to expect. The move continues the three owners’ mutually beneficial relationship, helping cut costs and drive traffic to each other’s businesses while increasing offerings at the downtown Strange Matter.

The new Babe’s operation isn’t run out of the kitchen.

Staying true to its name, Babe’s took over a corner in the shop, a corner that Nader said “wasn’t being utilized to its fullest.”

For Strange Matter, it means being able to sublease an underutilized corner of the shop. For Babe’s, it means cheaper rent and proximity to their sibling businesses, making it easier to share supplies and split time across the two.

The move will also expand hours for the downtown Strange Matter, which formerly closed at 2 p.m. on weekdays. Nader acknowledged that current hours are confusing, with the businesses working out a new normal. The owners hope to eventually have Strange Matter and Babe’s open until 6 p.m. most days.

Like with Bangos before it, customers can order Babe’s sandwiches at the same register where they order their lattes. Customers can grab a coffee, tea or Italian soda from Strange Matter, fried potatoes from Bangos and a sub from Babe’s, or any other combination they can dream up. (Hebert said there are no plans to introduce an affogato option at Strange Matter using Bangos ice cream — yet.)

Hebert hopes access to a kitchen can eventually expand food offerings, such as meatball subs or hot turkey sandwiches.

As restaurants tighten their budgets amid high food prices, Nader and Hebert said this model is one worth following, as the businesses share values.

And for Hebert, it’s just great to see more people coming together.

“When it’s lunchtime, and it gets busy, it just kind of feels good,” he said. “Like, after COVID, it feels good to be in a place where there’s a bunch of people enjoying themselves.”