About Town

New Crew Serves Coffee, Fresh-Baked Pastries at Central Street Metra

Opinion columnist Christine Wolf interviews three friends who have "re-opened" a beloved top-of-the-tracks commuter restaurant at the Central Street Metra Station.

When I first moved to Evanston in 1997, I made a daily commute to and from my office in Chicago on the Metra line. It wasn’t a long commute from the Davis Street station to the city, but it felt like a grind, especially since I was pregnant. Now that I write from my home, however, I’m envious of the Metra morning commuters traveling from Evanston’s Central Street Station, where Upstairs Café just opened. Evanston residents and friends Elizabeth Hubbard, Gail Doeff, and Shelley Patterson opened Upstairs Café on Nov. 5, 2012. They bought the business from Mary Lou Smith and her husband, Bill, who’d owned and operated the cafe as Top of the Tracks for 24 years. I stopped by the new place on the third day of business to sample the baked goods …

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Christine Wolf

9:35 am on Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Oh dear! Did I spell Shelley's name wrong????   more ›

Metra Cafe Owners Retire After 24 Years at the ‘Top of the Tracks’

Friends, family and longtime customers say Mary Lou and Bill Smith created a home away from home at the Central Street Metra Station.

Over the last 24 years, commuters at the Central Street Metra station have relied on the station’s cafe for coffee, pastries and—perhaps more importantly—a friendly smile, local gossip and a warm sendoff from the owners, Mary Lou and Bill Smith.  On Friday, the last official day of business for Top of the Tracks, family and friends packed the small space as Mary Lou served the last trickle of customers. She bustled from the back kitchen to the front register, refilling the coffee machine, packing more water bottles into the cooler and setting out eggs in the dish on the counter, stopping only to greet each person who entered. “She’s wonderful,” says Saul Wexler, an attorney who’s been coming to Top of the Tracks since it opened. “She makes…

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