Birthdays, karaoke, massages, and pumpkin spice lattes have been filing up October memories for one cafe in Aurora downtown. 

The menu switches with the seasons, but all of the ingredients are made in house and sourced from a local ghost kitchen that provides freshly baked muffins, pastries, and now caramel apples.

“It serves 2 purposes. It’s our production. Everything we produce we produce there,” Owner Jeff Williams told Naper Today in an in person sit down interview. 

The shared kitchen is headed by chef Jackie Meijia, who Williams met in early 2018 at her bakery in Montgomery. According to Williams, it took around 4 years to start up the kitchen after their initial business partner handshake. 

“Shortly after we launched the kitchen, we launched the cafe. We closed the food truck after a couple years. Now Jackie is focusing on wholesale,” Williams mentioned.

The commercial kitchen supports the cafe, food trucks in the area like Cousin’s Main Lobster, Tamales Plus, and Porkie’s. Jackie also develops recipes for a new restaurant called Farmhouse in Lockport. 

About 55 to 60 per cent of the café’s business revenue comes from the cafe’s signature drinks: cinnamon bliss latte, matcha, mexican chocolate latte, and brown sugar latte. 

The drinks have a special touch from café manager Uziel Robledo’s background in mixology, where he knows each ingredient and flavor that comes together. 

“Everything is handmade, locally sourced, all syrups are made in house. Everything is just here from Aurora, syrups, sauces, sandwiches, the people, the customers, everything,” Robledo told Naper Today. 

Cafe 1888 Barista Kayla Wang loved hanging out at the spot so much she decided to start working there too. After pursuing her MBA and working traditional marketing jobs, the 41-year-old wanted to spend her day around loving people and an environment that brings people together. 

Robledo and his wife Diomaris, who handles social media, frequently bring their kids to the spot and most recently, joyfully celebrated their youngest son’s birthday at Café Atrévete. 

Their children Hannah, Alitzabelle, Ezra and Prince got together and enjoyed cake with twinkling eyes, watching their dad serve drinks while balancing spending quality time with them. 

Coming from the Dominican Republic and Mexico, the Robledos represent the nearby demographics of Aurora, showing what’s possible for young adults who attend nearby high schools like East Aurora. 

“We’re in an old neighborhood and this neighborhood was neglected for a long time and there’s never been something like this for the neighborhood, so now having this here, a lot of the houses in the area here are owned by a lot of hispanic families, so I think it’s important this neighborhood itself has something here,” Robledo said. 

Eduardo Robledo, Robledo’s father and a local church bishop, expressed his appreciation and admiration for his son, basking in the legacy in front of him while his grandson giggled with his siblings on his birthday. It was also a day off from school for parent teacher conferences. 

Williams sees folks from all over Aurora and Naperville, but young people are usually sitting in the chairs the longest. The cafe sits on a 10 acre campus, including the East Aurora school district office, Bardwell senior center, VNA Healthcare, and Weston Bridges, a residency for high functioning autistic individuals.

“In a world where you have so many cookie cutter Starbucks, it’s nice to have a space that feels like home. It feels original and here for the community,” Robledo said.