The Hottest New Cafe Is in Someone's Living Room

The week before Morning Jays opens, Mr. Nate Crawford and Mr. Justen Lambert kick into overdrive.

- Yola Mziz

The week before Morning Jays opens, Mr. Nate Crawford and Mr. Justen Lambert kick into overdrive. To start, they draft a menu, with three sweet pastries from Mr. Crawford and three savory dishes from Mr. Lambert. Forty-eight hours out, they visit multiple grocery stores—their selections often feature in-season ingredients and dive into prep, chopping, tasting, and tweaking as they go.

Come Saturday, they're up at dawn, jockeying for oven space, brewing coffee, plating and decorating, while setting out to-go cups and totes stamped with the blue Morning Jays logo. Then they slip on branded T-shirts and await their guests.

These are not paying customers, however; they're friends and family. Because Morning Jays is not a real cafe. It's an apartment in Des Plaines, Illinois, made to look and feel like one.

For Mr. Crawford and Mr. Lambert, what began as a way to test recipes for their long-term goal of opening a farmers market breakfast stall has evolved into a full-fledged apartment cafe complete with signature menus, merch drops, a Substack newsletter, and a growing list of people who want to stop by.

"We're really excited about this home cafe, because it offers more hospitality than a classic restaurant does," said Mr. Lambert, 33, a recipe developer.

"It's more cozy, it's more intimate, and there's a lot more focus on providing good quality food, because we're not a restaurant with tons of overhead. We can focus more on making the experience about community building," he added.