On a Friday in early July, I found myself in Chicago partaking in the current hip food trend: waiting in lines. If 2026 food media is to be believed, food lines are more prominent and perfunctory than ever. Chicagoans have already grown accustomed to this
particular feature of the modern dining experience. Folks habitually wait in lines for Kasama breakfast sandwiches and pastries and have been doing so for several years. However, this summer there are even more pastry lines to while away an hour in. Enter Bad Butter, the new Bucktown neighborhood storefront from Soho House pastry chef turned Instagram drop denizen Dan the Baker (AKA Dan Koester), who turned pandemic layoff lemons into a booming online bakery business, and then a residency at a local hotel. To-date, he commands a 179,000-follower count.
The wait
I knew from contributor Sarah Yi’s hour-long line experience in May that I was in for a wait, and committed to hitting the streets early (especially for someone not yet adjusted to Central Time). I arrived at 7:55 a.m. — a full five minutes before the doors opened — to a line that was fully down the block. As the clock ticked towards open, more groups filed in behind me. I set a timer (for science) and proceeded to slowly make my way towards the white-washed brick storefront. As I approached the kitchen next door to the shop, I caught my first glimpse of the Bad Butter machine feeding lamination thrill-seekers: a metal pan of gorgeously glossy blueberry pastries, and beyond, bakers at oak bench tables employing wooden rulers and box cutters to precisely measure and cut their pastry rectangles.
The vibe
Once through the front door, that you wend your way along a brick wall filled with merch (bread knives, bags of Metric Coffee beans, et cetera) and pre-bagged English muffins, sourdough bagels (plain and everything & benne seed for $10 a three-pack), bagel chips ($6) and charred scallion furikake focaccia — all warm from the oven, a fog collecting on the surface of the bags. The interior of the shop has a soaring ceiling filled with wood crossbeams, giving the bakery an almost quaint, Scandinavian church feel. To the right, customers can place orders for lattes and beverages before the line snakes away towards the pastry case where crews efficiently assemble boxes with treats from the cooling racks.
Take note
Seasonal is the name of the game here. While pastry forms — monkey bread, canele, cruffin — stay fairly static, Bad Butter cycles out the fillings and toppings, so consider the recommendations here a framework for your visit.
What to order
- Hands down, my most memorable bite was the harissa monkey bread ($7). Deeply charred, orange-tinged oil permeates the bread’s cracks and crevices, and the top receives a fried egg-sized splatter of creamy labneh that’s made richer with a pool of olive oil. Despite the oil, the dough maintained a shocking lightness, the cheese nicely balancing out the harissa heat. If you need more proof of the monkey bread’s bona fides, Yi also noted it was her favorite bite of the trip — though during her visit the seasonal menu swapped harissa and labneh for smoky salsa macha.
- The Fancy Chocolate Croissant ($7) was a lovely balance of laminated pastry, decorated with a striking cocoa-colored lattice and a well-distributed, rich, and creamy chocolate filling.
- I tend to judge bakeries on their almond croissants, and the twice-baked almond croissant ($6.50) stood out for me against others I’ve sampled recently. The exquisite lamination was complemented by a truly crispy exterior (probably attributed to the baking technique alluded to in the name). The interior was also generously filled with a fresh almond paste that escaped the trap of cloying, claggy sweetness.
- At $10, the blueberry and lemon verbena Danish is an investment, but what you’re paying for here is a heaping helping of plump fruit at peak season. The berries sit within a bird’s nest of pastry, resting atop a thick layer of gently sweet cream.
- During my visit, the cruffin flavor du jour was raspberry ($8). It was too attractive to resist: a thick tower of swirling cone-shaped pastry dusted with fine sugar and finished with a dollop of cream, a raspberry, and raspberry dust. Once I got it home and sliced into it, the center revealed a vermilion raspberry jam filler. It was a messy, sweet treat — like the best kind of filled doughnut.
- While Dan the Baker is known for his sourdough bread, I was thwarted upon my visit; I overheard one of the staff explaining to a customer that an oven was offline. In lieu of a loaf, I went for the charred scallion furikake focaccia ($10). The soft bread was good enough to eat on its own, with crunchy sesame seeds evenly spread across the top, nestling into soft, oily dimples. I think this would have made a great sandwich bread, too, but alas, it disappeared before I could apply any spreads or vegetables.
Make a day of it
If you’re like me and love a stroll (and are visiting and short on time), you can make this adventure into a full-scale crawl. It’s a gentle 30-ish minute walk to Kasama and from there a mere skip and jump to another of-the-moment addition, Guillotine Bakery.
Insider tip
It’s obvious, but the move to achieve the shortest wait time is getting in line ahead of opening. Had I arrived 10 minutes earlier, I might have cut my wait time in half (this is pure speculation!). From starting time to paying, my total time expenditure at Bad Butter was 48 minutes. Load up a podcast, bring a friend, or eavesdrop on your fellow pastry fans (who, in my case, were musing on the nature of… waiting in lines).
The verdict
At Bad Butter, customers are spoiled for choice, and you can seriously indulge if that is your desire — unlike some spots that contend with lines, this bakery has yet to enforce a limit on pastries. Case in point: The inspiring gentleman behind me filled an entire box with pastries, and then proceeded to fill a second box with multiples of the ube caneles. To put it more plainly, if you put in your time, you can reap the rewards, and my box of treats was very much worth the wait. Weeks after and several more pastry boxes later, I’m still thinking about the blueberry and lemon verbena Danish and harissa monkey bread.
