LOGAN SQUARE — A little over a month after closing its Logan Square location, La Boulangerie management launched a Kickstarter campaign Tuesday to raise money to come back to the neighborhood.
The French bakery closed at the end of last year after coming to an undisclosed "settlement" with neighbor New Wave Coffee.
When it opened at the corner of Logan Boulevard and Milwaukee Avenue in 2010, the bakery agreed to a non-compete clause with neighbors New Wave Coffee that forbade it from selling coffee and only allowed it to sell croissants a dozen at a time.
Eventually they were able to negotiate the minimum croissant sale down to eight, but manager Maggy Legros acknowledged in January 2013 that they were likely missing sales because of the agreement.
Now Legros and owner Vincent Colombet are hoping to reopen somewhere else in the neighborhood, and they are asking Logan Square residents to help with a Kickstarter campaign seeking $80,000.
"Because we have not been able to renew our lease at 2569 N. Milwaukee Ave., we have been forced to close," the Kickstarter description reads. "Many of our customers have expressed disappointments about the closing and are asking about the next location."
In a phone interview Tuesday, Legros said the money is needed to cover the deposit on a new location as well as any remodeling work that would need to be done to convert a space into a bakery.
"Usually to open a bakery, it's around $200,000, but we already have all the equipment that we used to have in the old bakery," she said.
Legros said the bakery would sell the same items as the old one — baguettes, pastries, macarons, crepes, etc. — with perhaps a few additions such as fougasse, a French flatbread, and yes, coffee.
In the meantime, the bakery's Lakeview location at 915 W. Belmont Ave. is still open, along with a new food truck — both of which sell croissants one at a time.
