A bell rings gently each time the door opens at the Ashbary Coffee House, signaling to employees that a new customer has stepped foot into their space of comfort and creativity. Neon lamps and obscure flyers fill the walls from top to bottom, letting customers know that originality is warmly welcomed. This coffee house in Willow Springs seems like a café that should exist in the city, but the catch is that it is neatly tucked into the woods of the suburbs.
I just turned 50, my husband and I came up here, we looked around, and I said, "Well, what do you want to do?"
"Shit happens." says Karl Stadtler, co-owner of the Ashbary with his wife, Vicky. The economy crash in 2005 hit the former sheet metal contractor and artist hard, forcing them to find a new way to get by. Vicky elaborates, "We came up here in March of 2006 and had lunch and that was the day that the owner's girlfriend posted it online. My daughter was like, 'We could do it, we could do it!'. It was survival, that's what I say. Survival and destiny."
It is after dusk and a horror movie is playing on an old TV in the corner of the room, the lone Ashbary employee taking a break to complain out loud about a character’s decisions. “Don’t go in there!” he yells, and customers laugh along with him and join in on the sarcasm. The snarky laughs harmonize with the tapping of fingers on keyboards and pens scratching on paper that fill up the rest of the room.
The stairs to the second floor hold a small secret; the blue paint on the walls cover long lost words scribbled by the shop’s clever customers that have passed through for the last couple decades. At the top of those stairs is a room that’s empty for the day, but will soon be packed with aspiring musicians and poets searching for an audience to pour their souls to on a Wednesday night. "We do open mic to give musicians a chance." says Vicky.
The Ashbary is known for being a safe haven for the literary and eccentric, the misfits and musicians. The coffee house has hosted many fundraisers for its customers to provide support in their times of need. "It's more than a Starbucks, it's a community. Everybody knows everybody, everyone looks out for the place," says Vicky. "The cool thing is that there's zero tolerance for any bigotry or hatred or any bullshit like that. You're out, no questions asked. [The customers] are all pretty good judges of that."
My favorite part about the coffee house is that I'm happy when I get up in the morning and it's somewhere that I want to go and I'm proud of. It keeps my family together.
As the night grows late and the lamps in the coffee shop shine brighter, the seats continue to fill. The chatter quiets as the customers become enveloped in their work. You, too may quiet as you let the steam of your drink circle around the table and look out the window at the night. When the time is right, you will bring yourself to leave, already wondering when you can come back to relive the surprising warmth of the coffee in the woods.
Credits:
Ola Gronski