Making the most of SPACE

Evanston SPACE from Jacob N on Vimeo.

Dumpstaphunk played at Evanston SPACE last October.

The see-through glass walls of Union Pizzeria, Evanston’s newest restaurant, make its success apparent to anyone walking down Chicago Avenue. On any night, the place is as likely to be crowded as its handmade brick oven is likely to be scorching hot.

SPACE (Society for the Preservation of Art and Culture in Evanston), on the other hand, the concert venue and recording studio in the back of the same building, is still trying to develop as consistent a fan base. Both opened last April.

“People are hungry,” says SPACE and Union owner Craig Golden in an interview at his penthouse office in the Loop. “I wish they were hungry for music like they were for food, but they’re certainly hungry.”

Golden also owns the Lakeshore Theater, a comedy club on Clark St., a marketing company that represents clients like Mercedes Benz, Nike and the band Creed, and a commercial real estate company.

“I came out of college and was playing music as a very enthusiastic yet very mediocre guitar player,” he explains. “So I started doing construction.”

After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1981, Golden partnered with a high school friend and began buying and flipping flats in Chicago. Eventually they moved into commercial property and huge financial success.

“There was a certain part of life where I started going, ‘Hey you know, it’d be nice to get back into music again,’” he says.

Golden points out that because of he derives his income from commercial developing, ventures like SPACE fall in a gray area between business and pleasure.

“They’re not that commercially viable anymore,” he saysabout recording studios. “But they’re worth doing. It’s kind of like art, worth doing, hard to make money out of it.”

The Bearded Barista

Though Brendan D. Light has been working at the Unicorn Café for about two years, it's only been in the past few months that he's become responsible for making the café's soups. After an afternoon shift, I caught up with the bearded barista to discuss how he became the new soup man and where his best recipes come from.

JN: How did you start working at Unicorn?

BL: I remembered in college I loved working at a coffee shop, and I was trying to do my own stuff outside of this. I have nonpaying things that I like to do, so I might as well work at a place where I don’t hate it even if I get paid a little bit less.

JN: How did you become the café's soup supplier?

BL: The old guy, Nate, also known as Dougy, he took off. There was just a void, no soup guy. I’d never made a soup, but I thought it meant more money. And I like cutting up vegetables… (laughs) I enjoy vegetables. And so I just asked several times in an annoying way and then she [Tracie, the Unicorn's owner] gave me a chance to give me a try. And it was lucky enough that my girlfriend had a vegetarian soup book and so I just made a soup that was pretty awesome.

JN: What was the first soup you made?

BL: (Pauses and strokes his beard) What was my very first soup? Spicy Indian potato and pea. And it sold like hot cakes!

JN: How often do you make new soups?

BL: It’s pretty much whenever a soup runs out… It’s like making your bed, but twice a week and everybody else gets to sleep in your bed.

Click here to see what the Unicorn and a barista look like at the end of the day.

Flash Assignment 1 (with Kitty)

My first flash assignment

uno

name Jacob Nelson

I'm a New Media/Creative Nonfiction double major.  I like writing, but I'm also interested in learning about how to make cool things with cameras and Flash.

No idea what job I want in one year or ten.  Something that involves writing, and a throne.