Foam Coffee & Beer is a venue, bar, coffee shop, lounge and community joint that's by the neighborhood and for the neighborhood. This newish Benton Park West establishment has only been open six months, but it's already established itself as a favorite in and around Cherokee Street. It's become a community hub: On any given night, you can find hip kids working on their laptops, members of various neighborhood associations chatting over beer and wine or crafty types knitting and socializing.
"One thing I try to do is create a place that's customized for that specific location," says Foam owner Mike Glodeck. "People have joked with me about franchising, but this was created for the Cherokee neighborhood, it's got a look and feel of a lot of other places on the street,"
The interior is bright and sunny, with exposed brick, vintage accoutrements and an awesome blue velvet couch that one day I'm going to carry out in my purse. (If only I can find a magic wand big enough, or a purse the size of a full-size couch.) The staff is unfailingly polite and sociable, the coffee is excellent, and it's cute as hell. It's a place where you can feel good about dropping your dimes and dollars.
There's no sibling rivalry between Foam and the other coffee shops in the 'hood, however; Glodeck is good friends with Mudhouse owners Casey and Jeremy Miller, in fact, last weekend, they all went down to Columbia to see a show together at the Blue Note. So, if you're a regular at the Mudhouse, you're pre-approved at Foam.
"We do very different things," Glodeck says, "and I think they have some of the best food in the city, I go there for lunch all the time."
