These Chicago LGBTQ-owned businesses offer rainbow cakes, colorful coffees and a ‘third space' for all
Jennivee's Bakery
If Tiffany's sold cakes instead of diamonds and had a penchant for rainbows, it might be Jennivee's Bakery on Halsted Street. Rainbow pillows perch on a long pink booth and two faux crystal chandeliers dangle over a black and white checkered floor, the base of a spacious dining area that compelled chef and owner Jenni Vee to upgrade to this location from her beloved original storefront nearly a year ago.
'This is the gayest bakery in Chicago,' she said.
Vee immigrated to the United States from Cebu, Philippines, to pursue a career as a physical therapist. In 2017, she pivoted, employing 'pure ambition and a little bit of delusion' to open a bakery in Lakeview and realize a passion for baking she had been nurturing since age 6. Vee ran her original storefront on the other side of the neighborhood for seven years before opening this location last June.
The new space screams French chic turned a little cheeky: The woman in the Renaissance-style painting (ornate frame and all) casts a sly expression across the room, while the smudged mirror on the back wall reflects rainbow flower leis hung from classy light fixtures. A woman's silhouette holds up a cupcake in Vee's lace-trimmed pink logo.
'I wanted it to be fun, feminine, yet cozy and inviting,' Vee said.
Her cakes fit right in. Vee supercharges classic vanilla buttercream with bright colors and edible glitter. The vivid purple of her signature ube cake has new neighbors every month as Vee brainstorms fresh ideas, mostly based on Filipino flavors but with European baking techniques (think a mango buttercream cake).
This month, pride-themed cakes and cupcakes star in the display case. Rainbow sprinkles coat the outside of a large vanilla cake, with eddies of rainbow icing, coated in edible glitter, lining the top. The cupcake version is much the same: vanilla cake with a hefty swirl of multicolored buttercream icing. Vee has also created an edible monument to transgender pride in a lemon cake with strawberry filling. Stripes of baby blue, pink and white icing paint the transgender flag on the outside; cutting into the cake reveals the same pattern within.
The rainbow cupcakes are bestsellers at Jennivee's, but the pink and blue cake is most significant for Vee, a transgender woman herself.
As both business owner and head baker — her black chef's coat is usually powdered with flour, her hands stained with icing — Vee won't have time this June to participate in the Chicago Pride Parade. The parade, however, marches right past her bakery, so she's expecting a barrage of orders.
'The party comes here,' Vee said.
Since upgrading her space, Vee has become accustomed to mayhem: The bakery gets busiest during its later hours, when customers crowd in for cake, gelato and the comfort of a 'third space' like Jennivee's.
Audrey Borden and Michelle Gonzalez wanted to wave a pride flag in an area they thought could use a little more color. The couple opened October Cafe in Norwood Park, where Gonzalez grew up, two years ago in August. The fall-themed coffee shop offers a proudly queer space for those in search of community.
'I feel like that's what was intended for us — to make roots in a place where I grew up, and kind of push against the norms around here,' Gonzalez said. 'It hasn't been easy, but we're making it happen. I'm here — they're gonna hear me, they're gonna see me.'
Borden and Gonzalez do nothing with subtlety: Their pop music bumps through the space, their flavors are varied and loud, and their jack-o'-lantern decorations watch guests from every wall. For June, giant pride flags hang off one wall while a banner of smaller flags decorates another.
Borden and Gonzalez's love for each other, much like their love for October, is easy to spot. They met in 2019 at a 'Queers and Allies' meeting at North Park University, where Borden was a freshman and Gonzalez a junior. They were married in 2023, and Borden is now eight weeks pregnant with 'baby pumpkin.'
On the first of every month, Gonzalez and Borden roll out a new flight of specialty drinks. After the fall flight, which is available year-round, June's rainbow flight is the most popular. It features an orange-yellow mango and peach jasmine tea, a lavender latte, a red strawberry lemonade and a darker purple ube vanilla latte. Insiders know that this flight, like all the rest, is available year-round on October Cafe's secret menu.
In lieu of having a business float at the Chicago Pride Parade — Gonzalez and Borden said it's a hefty fee — October Cafe will host pride bingo June 20, a drag queen story hour June 21, and small business events June 21-22 to highlight other queer-owned businesses.
Everyone who works at this Lakeview bakery is gay.
'It's not a criteria, I swear,' laughed owner and baker James Cox.
But for Pride Month, it is fitting. In September 2021, Cox opened Chicago Sugar Daddy with his partner — in both business and life — Rayan Ibasco. The bakery's name is a callback to their early days as a couple, when Cox would shower Ibasco in sweet baked goods that earned him the moniker 'sugar daddy.'
At the shop, Cox handles everything baking-related while Ibasco files taxes and organizes payroll on top of working another full-time job as an international student recruiter. Ibasco, who grew up in Manila, Philippines, moved to the United States in 2017 and graduated from DePaul University. Cox moved to Chicago to get his degree from the French Pastry School; he earned it in 2007. He was an executive pastry chef at several restaurants and hotels in the Chicago area, and was the general manager at Jennivee's right before opening Sugar Daddy.
Sugar Daddy focuses more on catering and custom orders. Cox bakes a lot of wedding cakes — he's looking at around 200 this year, 60% of which he estimates are for queer weddings. June is the bakery's busiest month, as all sorts of companies, as well as regular customers, order pride-themed goods.
In the bricks-and-mortar, Cox fills the display case with chocolate and marble cupcakes iced with a rainbow swirl of thick Swiss buttercream. He also spruces up a basic sugar cookie with a rainbow watercolor effect and a heart shape.
'Any way to incorporate rainbows,' Cox said.
The trademark at Chicago Sugar Daddy is connection. Ibasco and Cox are both bad at names, but they remember faces and, more importantly, everyone's favorite order. Cox knows what to recommend for the woman who stops in before her hair appointment (chocolate) and the little boy whose grandmother brings him 'to go see James' (the marble cupcake). Ibasco is adamant that Chicago Sugar Daddy never become too corporate.
'We want to continue to be a home away from home forever,' Ibasco said. 'The bakery has been a gateway for us to be closer to the community.'
Cox and Ibasco will continue to spread sweetness to their community on the day of the Chicago Pride Parade — June 29 — when they plan to hand out free slices of rainbow cake.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
I used AI to make this song. The results, and its implications, startled me
Earlier this month, a band called the Velvet Sundown surpassed 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Its profile features two albums, some gauzy cover art and a genre-appropriate backstory. The music was credible, the branding effective and the effect convincing. Only afterward did we learn the truth: There was no band. Every note, lyric, image and faux-autobiographical gesture was the work of generative artificial intelligence. The project was presented as human, then rebranded as 'synthetic music guided by human creative direction,' a soft euphemism for automation. Whatever creative intentions, aesthetic sensibilities or prompting skills that may have guided the project, the resulting songs still arose from full substitution because no embodied musical practice took place. No performance, no skill-based interaction with the medium, no causal chain running through human hands in the act of making. We are in the process of crossing a threshold. AI systems trained on decades of creative labor now can plausibly simulate artistry, threatening to render the human creator redundant. Skills that once required years of practice are instantly mimicked by code. Musicians now face an existential question: Has their craft, refined through long hours of practice, collaboration and performance, already become obsolete? Listeners also face a paradox. A song moves you, but its 'singer' cannot feel. What, then, has moved you? The structure, the timbre, the rhetorical form? Or the knowledge that somewhere, behind the notes, another person is manipulating generative AI with whom you might be joined in experience? There is historical precedent for this. In the industrial era, machines hollowed out skilled labor. Weaving, typesetting and machining were all transformed into logistical problems that were, by and large, solved through automation. What disappeared was not only employment but a relationship between work and meaning. The rhythms of human labor were replaced by the monotonous hum of mechanical replication. Today's creative automation occurs on cloud servers. The new assembly line runs through graphics processing units and datasets on which a million songs become the raw template material for one more product. I've experienced this firsthand. Last year, I subscribed to Suno, an AI platform that generates music from text and audio prompts. Its marketing promises 'a future where anyone can make great music,' reframing skilled composition as a technical barrier waiting to be removed. My early experiments were forgettable. A prompt request for a Weimar-style cabaret polka returned a tune that sounded less like 'The Threepenny Opera' (1928), and more like elevator music for a mid-tier chain hotel in Leipzig, circa 2004. A Krautrock-inspired instrumental was more on point, but still nothing to write home about. Over time, however, Suno's responses improved dramatically. Then, in July, I decided to write a song combining the old way with the new generative tools. I uploaded lyric ideas (finished by ChatGPT) and a low-fi guitar recording from my phone to Suno. After several cycles, what came back startled me. The track, titled 'Ashes on the Heath,' didn't just resemble my idea; it felt like it was the idea, polished. The vocal delivery seemed emotionally real. It almost felt like a collaboration. [Listen to the song below.] Of course, the emotion wasn't real. Generative AI doesn't really collaborate. It doesn't know you or have feelings about strum patterns or drum fills. Most importantly, it doesn't make mistakes, which are integral to the process of real music. AI replicates genre conventions and timbral signatures. It does not live through them. It reproduces the statistical contours of prior performances while living nowhere inside them. It can only reconfigure forms once used to produce meaning. Generative AI is not magic; it's logistics. Platforms like Suno do not understand or feel music. They approximate its grammar. They rely on vast archives of recorded music, often pulled without permission or compensation. AI's 'cheap' outputs aren't cheap because the cost of making art has vanished. They're cheap because the cost for training is being invisibly offloaded onto past labor that was never compensated. They don't feel or resolve tension. They don't second-guess themselves. They produce form without the living content that once made form matter. Other audio tools based on machine learning — e.g., Izotope's noise reduction plug-in and Logic Pro's stem separation — have already become normalized in music production. But generative AI crosses a different line. It doesn't just assist the process. It threatens to supersede it entirely. The result could be substitution rather than enhancement. While some might argue that generative AI democratizes creativity, this framing obscures a deeper reality. These systems make possible the instantaneous imitation of creativity. Authorship too easily collapses into prompt-entry. It is more akin to configuration from a catalog. Yes, AI can and will enhance creative projects, making new outcomes possible. No, it will not mean the same thing if no human struggle threads it together. When I initially shared my AI-assisted track with a few friends, I withheld the fact that the vocals had been created by a machine. The reception was warm. Some listeners were moved to tears. Then I shared the track with some other friends, disclosing the AI vocals upfront. The reception was quite different. 'There's no tell in the vocal that it's a heartless construct sent by fascitarian tech overlords to extract phosphorus from the working class,' one wrote. 'So: 1) good job, and 2) ohmygodwhatishappening?' Another said simply, 'Nice track — but I draw a hard line on AI for music creation, and I'm sure you know why.' I do know why. Because music isn't just sound. It's a relationship based on tension, memory and embodiment. It's the moment in the take that no one planned, but everyone went with, or the phrasing that makes the line land. I don't think AI will erase human music. Music is social; it comes from bodies in time. But the economic logic is changing. A tireless synthetic co-worker, charging a modest monthly subscription fee and trained on the unpaid labor of artists whose livelihoods it now threatens — this is all new. The point is not to romanticize a pre-generative-AI past. It is to understand that the problem is not the tool but the system that deploys it to cheapen labor and consolidate cultural production on private platforms. The question is not only, 'Can AI make art?' but also, 'Who controls what counts as art and under what terms?' Platforms like Suno are not only generating songs. They are scripting the future conditions under which music will be made, circulated and valued. To what extent these systems serve as creative tools or substitutes for creativity will decide whether culture remains an open field of human meaning or a closed loop of recombinable parts. That decision is, in principle, ours to make. But the conditions for exercising that agency are eroding quickly.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Angry residents of NY town want HBO to cough up money for fire on set of series staring Mark Ruffalo: ‘I lost everything'
They're still hot under the collar. Feelings in an upstate New York town are continuing to smolder after a massive, 2019 fire on the set of an HBO miniseries that starred Mark Ruffalo — which is still wreaking havoc on residents as the deep-pocketed network fails to make things right, according to a new report. The explosive blaze at a car dealership that served a film location for 'I Know This Much Is True' destroyed a village landmark in Ellenville, caused an estimated $15 million in damage, and exposed locals to potentially toxic chemicals, according to the L.A. Times. Advertisement 'It comes down to this: If you hurt people, you take care of them,' said lawyer Wayne Lonstein, who has sued HBO on behalf of two neighboring families. 4 Actor Mark Ruffalo went on to win an Emmy for his role in the miniseries. The devastating blaze put dozens of locals out of jobs and damaged the homes of two next-door neighbors with children, neither of whom had the means to move out, according to the report. Advertisement 'They came to do the movie and destroyed everything,' said Pablo Ferrada Arias, 46, whose mobile home was left warped and water-damaged from the fire and efforts to put it out. 'I lost too much here: I lost money, lost time with my daughter… I lost everything,' he said, adding his 7-year-old girl developed asthma and had to move out after the blaze. 4 The fire broke out at a car dealership on the set of the show in Ellenville. But despite a fire investigation that found equipment used by HBO caused the electrical fire, HBO still hasn't compensated some victims who lost property, according to the report. Advertisement In early 2019, HBO spiffed up the Midcentury Modern-style building that housed 613 Automotive Group to depict a 1990s-era car dealership with gleaming props, including Chevrolet Camaros and Corvettes, on loan from motorheads throughout the state. Just before 1 a.m. on May 9, 2019, after a long day of filming, a small fire broke out inside the dealership after the last of HBO's crew had left for the night. It quickly spread to a mechanics' shop in the back of the business, where 55-gallon drums of oil likely caused a giant explosion, officials said. 'Every window in the place just blew out. Then it became a hell show,' recalled George Budd, Ellenville's assistant fire chief, who was first on the scene. Advertisement Although nobody was injured, the inferno ripped though the 12,000 -square-foot structure, burned for 12 hours and resulted in an estimated $15 million in property damage. 4 The fire broke out at 613 Automotive Group in Ellenville. Ulster County fire investigators later wrote in a report that the electrical fire was ignited by HBO crew members' sound equipment batteries, which were left charging overnight in the dealership's showroom, according to the paper. The blaze has since sparked finger-pointing, lawsuits and local rage directed largely at HBO, which received a $24 million state tax credit for the 90 million production, according to the report. 'The amount of money made off this film compared to the relative cost of doing the right thing is virtually meaningless to a company the size of HBO,' former state Sen. Jen Metzger told the paper. 'People's lives are at stake and that's really all that matters.' A contaminated pile of burned car parts and other junk such as blown-out oil tanks also put nearby residents at risk, according to a February 2020 New York spill report. Storm runoff from the pile of fire debris, possibly laced with toxic chemicals, drained down a slope and into Rios' backyard, the state report noted, the LA Times reported. 'It's a very hard thing for a small community to have a trauma like that,' said Steven Kelley, Ellenville Regional Hospital chief executive. 'And there was this pile of rubble still sitting there for about a year — reminding us how bad [the fire] was.' Advertisement Others who lost cars and equipment in the fire said they have yet to be compensated. 4 Some residents of the upstate town have blamed HBO for the fire. REUTERS HBO has denied it was at fault for the fire, saying an ion battery used on set malfunctioned and citing 'the negligence…of a third party,' according to the LA Times. 'HBO has been producing shows on location all around the globe for decades, always with the utmost care and respect for the local environment and community,' the company said in a statement. 'It was no different for this series. The fire was an unforeseen accident, and it took time to investigate it thoroughly.' Advertisement The company reportedly also shifted cleanup responsibility of the left-behind pile of fire debris to the owner of the car dealership. Earlier this year, HBO and its insurance companies settled claims with some parties involved, including the owner of 613 Automotive Group. In its statement, HBO also noted that the only remaining lawsuit is the one brought by the two neighboring families. Advertisement Ruffalo, meanwhile, went on to win an Emmy for his portrayal of twin brothers in the drama, which is based on Wally Lamb's 1998. Reps for Ruffalo and HBO didn't immediately return a The Post's request for comment Thursday.
Eater
4 hours ago
- Eater
The NYC Restaurant Openings You Should Know About This August
This is Eater's guide to all the new restaurants, bars, and cafes that have opened this week. Throughout August, we'll update the list weekly. When we've been to a place, we will then include an abbreviated number of openings on our heatmap to let you know the ones we like. If there's an opening in your neighborhood that we've missed, let us know at ny@ August 14 Nolita: The Thai Diner's next trick is Mommy Pai's, a new casual takeout window dedicated to chicken fingers, which opened on Friday, August 8. There are grilled or fried chicken fingers, with flavors like lemongrass or Muay Thai, with garlic, soy, fish sauce, and coriander, along with sauces like Heavenly BBQ (capturing the flavors of the Thai beef jerky known as heavenly beef), or the noom green sauce. There are also sides like a Thai take on Johnnycakes and fruity drinks. 203 Mott Street, at Kenmare Street Penn District: Serano's Italian opened on Tuesday, August 12, joining the growing dining district around the Javits Center, with house-made pastas like spinach ricotta ravioli, Sicilian-style square pizzas (developed with help from a Roberta's alum), panini, and tomato and burrata salads. Serano's, a sibling spot to nearby Friedman's, carves out lots of room for gluten-free diets on the menu. 132 West 31st Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues Sunnyside: A new scone-dedicated bakery, the Sconery, opened in Queens on Tuesday, August 12. Expect flavors like cinnamon and fruit ones. Owner and founder Sheila Connolly was previously baking her scones at farmers markets in the city and Westchester. 39-39 47th Avenue, between 39th Place and 40th Street Upper East Side: Meet Libbi, an upscale Mediterranean restaurant from the team behind Midtown East's kosher Italian spot Abaita, which opened on Monday, August 11. The brightly lit space with room for 50 starts with a marbled counter outfitted with delicate pastries. Chef and owner David Donagrand leads a polished sit-down menu full of pesto pasta, egg-topped asparagus, and fluffy pancakes. 205 East 81st Street, between Second and Third avenues August 7 Pastas galore at Tortelli. Tortelli Carroll Gardens: There's a new Brooklyn pasta shop courtesy of a trio of Italian food experts: Tortelli opened on Wednesday, August 6, from co-owners James Mather (who worked as a cook and chef at places like Lilia, Misipasta, Maialino, Roman's, and Lupa), Silvia Barban (the owner and chef of LaRina Pastificio and Briscola Trattoria, from Italy), and Vincenzo Ruggiero (owner of Mozz Lab). The menu features the namesake stuffed pasta, among others. There are dine-in and takeout services, as well as uncooked pastas and other Italian food products, and tiramisu. 359 Sackett Street, near Smith Street East Village: The East Village Indian restaurant Ishq co-owners opened a new neighborhood fast-casual spot, KebabishQ (styled as KEBABISHQ), on Wednesday, August 6. The menu features halal charbroiled kebabs, hutneys, dahi puri, kulfi, and more. 128 Second Avenue, near St. Marks Place East Village: Glorious Pakistani chopped cheeses are now available in New York courtesy of Nishaan, which opened in early August. Owner Zeeshan Bakhrani's approach to building the halal menu stems from his upbringing — the sandwich is made of a patty-shaped kebab and a chopped cheese, taking the chapli kebab spices like adobo and cinnamon, cooking the meat on a griddle, mixing in pepper jack and American cheese, and dropping it all in a hoagie. 160 First Avenue, between Ninth Street and 10th streets Greenpoint: Lower East Side's Mexican-themed La Contenta added a second location in Brooklyn on Thursday, August 7, taking over the old Hungry Burrito space with a menu full of tacos, nachos, enchiladas, and margs.1079 Manhattan Avenue, between Eagle and Dupont streets Greenpoint: Kub Kao, which opened on Thursday, August 7, brings Brooklyn bowls of warm jasmine rice and fragrant Thai staples like spicy green curry, tangy papaya salad, and crispy fried fish. 988 Manhattan Avenue, near Huron Hell's Kitchen: Hudson Local, which opened on Tuesday, August 5, brings a new spot to the neighborhood for sampling cheddar cornbread, Hudson Valley steelhead trout, and steak all in one sitting. Well-traveled chef Samuel-Drake Jones also oversees Hudson Vu, which opened in May. Opening highlights include home-made fettuccine, Benton's country ham with summer melon, and grilled cabbage with tomato curry, which channels his time in London. The bar team is Los Angeles's Alta Adams, and a wine list curated by a former L'Atelier de Robuchon sommelier. 653 11th Avenue, near 11th Avenue Upper East Side: A new below-street-level Cambodian cafe, Artara Coffee, opened in early August, as reported by East Side Feed. Along with standard coffee and espresso drinks, there are matchas with options like matcha floats, mango matcha lattes, and ube matcha foams. 214 East 82nd Street, near Third Avenue Earlier this summer East Village: The new Baos & Bowls specializes in hand-pulled Shanghai noodles, which are wok-fried and tossed in soy sauce, bok choy, and scallions. The sleek red restaurant, which opened on Monday, July 28, also offers a cucumber salad slathered in house-made garlic sauce, rice bowls, and a dim sum section starring soup dumplings. A liquor license is reportedly en route, per EV Grieve. 401 East 13th Street, at First Avenue East Village: The bar formerly called Heaven Can Wait transformed into Lucinda's Honky Tonk + Juke Joint in late July. The reimagined space, once home to other music venues like Coney Island Baby, Lola, and Brownies, is a partnership between Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, Laura McCarthy, and Kelley Swindall. Lucinda's describes itself as a soulful Southern honky-tonk, with live country music Fridays, live-band karaoke Saturdays, and a jukebox packed with country classics. 169 Avenue A between 10th and 11th streets Flushing: Billed as a modern American restaurant with Asian flair, Blu Ember is the latest project from Balance Hospitality Group (Moli, Hinoki, and Miku Sushi in Greenwich, Connecticut), which opened in June. Situated at the foot of the new Westin Flushing LaGuardia Airport Hotel, Blu Ember showcases prime steaks, sushi, a raw bar, an omakase counter, and items cooked on a charcoal-fired Japanese binchotan grill. 137-49 Northern Boulevard, between Linden Place and Leavitt Street Jackson Heights: Angel Indian Restaurant expanded with a second location in the same neighborhood on Tuesday, July 22. 75-18 37th Avenue, between 75th and 76th streets Midtown: Hospitality vet Josh Kessler (Barnea, Bonito, Lotus Room) brings fancy Italian fare to the heart of Grand Central with the late July debut of Bucatini. Along with its namesake noodle, home-made with a choice of sauces, there's lots of antipasti like seared octopus and eggplant rotolo, skillet-based focaccia, and pizza from its Brazilian-born chef Augusto Ferreira. 2 East 45th Street, near Fifth Avenue The corn, goat curry and oxtail at Lélé. Lélé Midtown: This huge new Afro-Caribbean restaurant Lélé, which opened in late July, is led by chef Rúnar Pierre Heriveaux, an alum of Iceland's Michelin-starred Reykjavík's Óx. He showcases his Haitian heritage and French training across a menu full of green curry shrimp, fruity hamachi, and hot honey peanut chicken. The bar, which claims to be the city's first equipped with a robot bartender, delivers beachy cocktails complete with coconut water ice cubes and ginger wine floats. The three-story dining room is covered with velvety, tropical-themed furniture and chandeliers, all set to an Afrobeats soundtrack and sporadic live music. 237 Madison Avenue, between East 37th and 38th streets Mott Haven: A do-good cafe called Nourish opened for all-day service on Wednesday, July 31, in the Bronx with a catch-all menu featuring baked goods, steak frites, Korean fried chicken bites, and creative cocktails. All proceeds help support youth in the Bronx via the nonprofit Oyate Group. The site that formerly housed Chocobar Cortes features a bakery that opens at 7 a.m. until everything is sold out, with breakfast and lunch served until 4 p.m. Dinner goes from 5 p.m. to late. 141 Alexander Avenue, at East 134th Street Upper East Side: Uka Omakase slides into the uptown neighborhood in late July with 16-course tasting menus priced at an approachable $56 per person. Rotating highlights include uni flown in from Hokkaido, smoked kampachi, raw scallops, and seared salmon with foie gras. 238 East 60th Street, near Second Avenue
