Visit Edgar’s for a tasty suprise I didn’t know it existed until I saw the sign on the Goodwill store at Chatham Road and Wabash Avenue. Driving away from the garden center behind Hobby Lobby after buying more flowers than I’d intended (I have no willpower in those places), I did a double take: Edgar’s Coffee House. What was a coffeehouse doing in a Goodwill Store? By the time I reached home, though, I’d forgotten about Edgar’s, consumed with where I would put my flowers — and justifying their cost. But there’s a freakish law of coincidence that often happens after hearing about something: It keeps popping up. Two days later I had an e-mail from a friend suggesting I check out Edgar’s Coffeehouse.
The entryway was immaculate, suitable for an office building. The Goodwill shop itself the same, as was Edgar’s Coffee House.
Nothing even remotely “down-at-the-heels” anywhere! Edgar’s Coffee House could even be called stylish. Separated from the store by a partition, the walls are deep, warm ochre. The dark wood shelves holding bags of coffee and flavored syrups for sale, and the table topped with condiments and coffee accoutrements would be welcome in an upscale home. There’s a cushy looking leather couch with coffee and side tables, and chunky bistro tables with matching stools and chairs. The space is brightened with silk flower arrangements — small ones on the tables and taller creations elsewhere — and by a boldly striped gallonsized ceramic cup and saucer. A small sign advertises free WiFi. The open kitchen sports coffee makers, an espresso machine, and metal shelving with ingredients that confirm what the sign in the entrance and my friend had said: The baked goods in the display counter are made on the premises from scratch. It was an array of home-style goodness, including snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, iced sugar cookies, ooey gooey butter cake, chocolate chip bars, some kind of peanut butter bar topped with a brownie mixture, two types of scones and baklava.
It was early afternoon, and Edgar’s, although not packed, was steadily busy. The cheerful guy behind the counter kept up an amusing line of banter with customers, some obviously regulars. I ordered a sandwich from the small list and an iced latte with an extra shot — my preferred warm weather coffee drink. I also ordered a piece of baklava, about which I’d heard good things.
My roast beef and provolone sandwich was pleasant and basic, as probably are the other sandwich options if the menu is any indication. This is not a complaint: the sandwich was well worth its $4 price tag, and I was especially pleased to have it on an onion roll, an option that’s been eliminated from other Springfield lunch spots. (I particularly miss The Feed Store’s chicken salad on an onion roll.) Sandwiches come with lettuce and tomato, but I would have appreciated having some thinly sliced onion as well. My latte came precisely as ordered — a feat in itself these days as more and more specialty coffee shops dumb down their drinks with sweeteners, flavored syrups and inferior coffee to the point that the coffee itself becomes incidental.
It’s sad that Starbucks, which popularized the concept in the U.S., now tops the list of such places (more about that later).
Thankfully, Springfield has several that are locally owned and still know what good coffee is. Edgar’s is among them. I’d avoided sides in order to have room for the baklava, which proved to be a wise decision. My friend had told me that Edgar’s baklava had “kind of a cult following.” Just looking at it, I could see it was a bit different than usual. Baklava is a pastry that originated in Greece and the Middle East. Paper-thin layers of pastry are lightly brushed with butter, stacked, and then layered between a chopped nut filling (most traditionally walnut, but sometimes pistachios or a combination) flavored with cinnamon. The pastry is baked, and drenched in a honey/syrup mixture.
Edgar’s version has a much greater proportion of nuts to pastry than is typical. The first taste told me that pecans (native to Illinois)
