Popular Lakeview brunch favorite Orange has opened a second location in the Printer's Row neighborhood just south of the Loop. While the concept remains the same, the new spot is more than twice the size, with single seating for 12 at the juice bar and a private 16-seat meeting room featuring a business center monitor for Power Point, DVD & VHS presentations.
Like its cuisine, the space is imaginative and inviting. Think Trotter in his pajamas; that’s the atmosphere. It's open, airy, energetic and upbeat. A colorful, loft-like feel prevails with high ceilings, exposed orange-colored ductwork and an open kitchen that re-emphasizes the restaurant’s interactive sensibility. A few unexpected twists include: 15-foot textured leafy "trees" dangling off the walls, an IPA-inspired mural, park benches in an orange tree-lined entryway and custom-made vintage orange crates that hang as light fixtures, making you feel as close to an orange grove as you can get in the center of Chicago.
Guests can watch as the restaurant’s famous organic house-blend orange coffee (organic beans roasted with oil extracted from orange peels) is pumped out through the bar’s original beer tap system. "Concoct-it-yourself" juices as well as the restaurant’s frushi (fresh fruit exquisitely sculpted to resemble sushi) are also made behind the bar.
Favorite dishes include a pancake flight (four stacks of silver dollar pancakes dressed completely different with one common weekly-changing theme) and French toast kabobs (coconut-infused, skewered and grilled with fresh strawberries and pineapples, served with coconut-mango salad). The weekly changing specials are a draw themselves: everything from Trailer Park Pancakes (cornmeal pancakes topped with BBQ chicken, served with a side of apple slaw and garnished with a spork, Wet-Nap and a six-ounce can of Budweiser) to Irish Toast (cinnamon French toast with basil crème anglaise topped with strawberry plumped cherries and served in Bailey’s Irish Cream, garnished with a pocket breathalyzer test). BYOB.
