New Sound Cafe opens in Austin 

A long-empty storefront at 5958 W. Lake St. in Chicago, formerly a gospel record store, is now spinning coffee beans in an onsite roaster. New Sound Cafe churns out fresh brews with soul, with the hope of becoming a gathering place. 

Owners Andrew and Hannah Follett moved to Austin with their kids from Oak Park four years ago. Not long after the building caught their eyes.  

“It had some character to it and it’s just kind of a neat space,” Andrew Follett said. “When you would look in the windows you would see these original tile floors with the maroon, green and white penny tile. And it was like, man, that’s a cool space. But it was completely empty.”  

“No plumbing, no electrical, no walls, nothing. It was a shell,” Hannah Follett said. 

The gospel record store that gave the café its name opened sometime in the 1970s. And no one has lived in the upstairs apartments for a long time. It took some imagination and collaboration to reenvision the location.  

“We enlisted an advisory board of people who either had expertise in coffee or community engagement or longtime Austinites to help this process,” Hannah Follett said. “We also wanted to think carefully about things like price point and offerings.” 

Thus, the onsite roaster.  

“We can get unroasted beans much cheaper,” Andrew Follett said. “It only takes us 10 or 15 minutes to roast three pounds of beans. And we can do that as much as we want on demand. We can have fresher coffee.” 

“We do not have a kitchen, so we partner with Trini’s Tasty Pastries,” Hannah Follett said. “She is a caterer out of the Hatchery on the West Side. She supplies all of our food items, which include breakfast sandwiches, lunch sandwiches, soup, pastries.” 

The area that used to be apartments upstairs is now a lounge to sip and chat or work. There is also a large conference table that can be closed off and rented for meetings.  

Community building was always a driver behind the inspiration for the business, according to the Folletts.  

“Of course, anybody is welcome to come,” Andrew Follett said. “But we wanted to have a feel that was intentionally for the Austin neighborhood. Our church, Chicago West Bible Church, is on this block. We now have this kind of hyper-local community where we live two blocks from our church, school, and now the cafe.” 

One hundred percent of the profits from the cafe are promised to go back into the community as well.  

“We’re partnering with local West Side, Austin-based organizations,” Hannah Follett said. “Austin residents are able to reinvest in their neighborhood. The money that they’re spending goes to impact the work that’s going on in their neighborhood.” 

A patio behind the building can been seen through wide glass doors from the ground floor of the cafe. Plans are afoot to plant more greenery there in the spring and to host events and music.  

“We want this space to be a place where people can connect, get to know each other, run into people,” Hannah Follett said. “The kind of place where people are rubbing shoulders.” 

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