New Coffee Roaster, Café Coming to Evanston

Partners Chris Casas and Marco Ferrarini are planning to open a coffee roaster called Coffee Speed Shop in west Evanston, as well as a café and restaurant called La Macchina downtown this spring.

The high-ceilinged headquarters of Coffee Speed Shop, in a West Evanston warehouse, are largely empty now. But they’ll soon be filled with a 25-pound capacity coffee roaster and the scent of beans from Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras. Business partners Chris Casas and Marco Ferrarini, both Evanston residents, are getting ready to open a coffee roaster at 2000 Greenleaf St. this March. They plan to sell the coffee to local cafes as well as at a companion restaurant and café they’re also opening downtown at 1620 Orrington Ave. “I’ve always wanted to roast,” says Casas, who previously owned two cafes in Evanston that have since closed, including The Italian Coffee Bar, at 1549 Sherman Ave. That cafe closed in 2010 and was replaced by The …

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