By: Deedee El bego
Eight months after opening Matcha Cita in April of 2022 in West Loop, owner Bianca Louras, 32, and her husband Tony Louras, 35, were woken up by a phone call that would flip their world upside down.
They had just received news that a fire started next door to their cafe and it had unfortunately spread to their business. This would be the beginning of a year-long journey that Bianca now says she’s grateful she went through.
In April of 2022, a TikTok highlighting that Chicago’s getting a new matcha cafe spread all over social media.
“We went viral 3 days before we even opened,” said Bianca, who was confident in her matcha recipe that she worked so hard to perfect.
Bianca and Tony were excited that news of their cafe was spreading on Instagram and TikTok, but more than that they were ready to finally see their dreams become reality.
“On our first day we had over 100 people in line, it was unexpected,” Bianca added.
Yet everything would quickly change. The fire would destroy their location and force them to start from scratch.
“It’s every small business owner’s worst nightmare,” said Tony Louras.
They had to figure out what to do for the next six months until their business could be back up and running again.
“It was a heartbreaking and alerting experience that taught me so much as a business owner. I mean we were thinking about franchising, but now we had to redo electricity.”
Forced to play catch up in order to stay in business, the Lourases went mobile with a matcha cart. It forced them to go to different events and sell matcha outside of the physical cafe, but in turn it allowed for the possibility of discovering new opportunities like working with Lollapalooza.
It was a long process of redesigning, rewiring, and repainting until Matcha Cita opened its doors back up in February of 2023. Except this time, Bianca wasn’t going to let anything knock her down. Regulars and new customers slowly began pouring in after the reopening was announced.
“I order a “Love You Berry Matcha” smoothie and I love it. I come here after my pilates class, it’s the perfect place to go after my workout,” said Aisha A, 23, a regular.
The interior of Matcha Cita, decorated with a pink, green and floral theme. (Deedee El bego/CLASSICCHICAGO)
“This is my first time here. I ordered the “Pink Pataya” smoothie and it’s really good. Pink is my favorite color so I love that it’s part of the atmosphere here and I would definitely come again,” said Ellie H, 22.
Since reopening, Bianca has fallen in love all over again with Matcha Cita. The closing gave her an opportunity to redesign the space into something that she says came straight out of her vision board.
“Bianca always has her hands busy, and I love helping and supporting her. She’s a very good business woman and she’s crushing it,” said Tony, who seems to have fallen in love all over again as well.
