Okay, time for week number two of the latest MBIP food tour, Six Weeks of Soup. We started last week at Kenny’s Westside Pub and had not only a great soup, but some Irish Stew as well. And we met someone who said she’d like to join us on some of these food outings...hey, what’s that...
It’s three knocks at the door at MBIP World Headquarters which can only mean one thing...
It’s MBIP pal, Contributing Writer and Wheelman, Scott Turley and he’s with the newest member of the ever-growing ensemble of MBIP recurring guest stars, Nathalie! As I said, we met Nathalie at Kenny’s last week and she told us that she’s a regular reader of MBIP and would enjoy going out on some of our food adventures and hey, who’s going to turn down such a beautiful and fun woman like her? Definitely not Scott and I, so we had a quick beer and then...
It’s off we go into that wild blue yonder. We’re heading towards one of my favorite towns outside of Peoria, Lacon, Illinois, which has so much fun stuff going on, including...
This place, The Coffee Hub!
As you’ll see when we step inside of here, while it’s known for a large selection of coffee, The Coffee Hub has so much more in store than just roasted coffee beans to offer to its customers.
It’s early on a Sunday afternoon, so right now we have the place to ourselves! As you can see, it’s really a cool place in here.
Check this out, they have the largest selection of vintage soda pop I’ve ever seen! Plus there’s gourmet popcorn and a shelves of snacks, candy and other assorted goodies, much of it locally made.
This is Mike, the friendly owner of The Coffee Hub. He’s taking pictures and is going to post them on The Coffee Hub’s facecrack page shortly after this post goes up. Click here to see what kind of behind the scenes shots he got as we roam around The Coffee Hub and do that MBIP thing we do!
Scott and Nathalie settled into this table where we’ll be sampling our soup today!
As I said, there’s way more than coffee to be had in here as you can see from the multiple menus hanging behind the front counter. But there is a large selection of coffee to have in here...
And so Nathalie thought she’d order up a cup of coffee. Payton helped her pick out a flavor and she got a steaming hot cup of Coconut Cream coffee, which she said was very smooth and gave off a pleasant aroma. I wish someone would say that about me sometime, but what are you going to do?
I’ve had the Skillet Cookie in here and it’s beyond fabulous, so it was decided we’d have that for dessert. It takes a half an hour to cook, so we ordered one up...
And here’s Hannah, putting on the plastic gloves and getting ready to prepare the Skillet Cookie and looking very pretty as she does so.
It starts off with some Crisco on a skillet, then the homemade cookie dough gets pre-cooked on top of the oven and then it’s inside for the final cooking time. While that bakes up, let’s take a look around in here.
Here’s a guide for ordering coffee for those that are new to the coffee experience.
Amy was working over here in the corner of the Hub and paused to flash a pretty smile for the MBIP camera!
As we reported a while back, Julie’s Corner Store has gone out of business, but her homemade fudge lives on here at The Coffee Hub!
One nice thing they have at The Coffee Hub is a showcase for artist’s every month. This month’s featured artist is photographer J.D. Nelson and his art is not for sale, which is pretty cool! His photos are amazing and it’s worth the trip here just to check them out.
There’s tables here in the back and...
Two comfortable couches in this lounge area opposite the tables. This is Abbi and Savanna relaxing over here and looking very cute as they lounge the afternoon away in The Coffee Hub!
Here’s a shot from the back of The Coffee Hub.
And look at this, it’s a bread bowl just waiting to be filled up with soup!
And here’s the soup that’s going to fill it up, Tomato Basil with Ravioli. The Coffee Hub has a different homemade soup every day and this is today’s soup. It looks and smells amazing!
Here’s Hannah expertly ladling the soup into the bread bowl and we also got another order in a regular bowl, just because we can. So there!
It’s soup time!
It looks delicious and it smells fantastic!
The bread bowl is all peppered up and it really looks amazing! I’ve never eaten soup from a bread bowl and so it’s time to dig in!
Here we go with soup number two on this soupy six week tour!
Nathalie took a shot of me taking my first bite of the soup...
It is so good! This really is more like a meal than a soup! It’s a zesty seasoned tomato based soup with tender ravioli stuffed with rich and creamy Ricotta and Romano cheese. This is so hearty and satisfying, everything that soup should be!
And when the soup is all gone, you can eat the bread bowl, which has sopped up some of the soupy goodness!
Okay, the half an hour has gone by and the Skillet Cookie is out of the oven. We ordered it with Uncle Bob’s fresh pumpkin ice cream and Payton’s topping it off with some drizzles of chocolate syrup.
Here he is delivering it to our table!
It looks and smells like a little bit of sweet heaven on earth!
And it tastes even better! What a wonderful day of food and fun at the Coffee Hub!
Thanks to Mike and everyone at The Coffee Hub for the fun, hospitality and great food! And Thanks to Scott for driving and to Nathalie for joining us and being a fun dining companion on our second week of soup! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Soup Rating
Three and a half Soup Nazi’s—The soup was fabulous and the Skillet Cookie took the afternoon meal way over the top!
The Coffee Hub
318 5th Street
Lacon, Illinois
309-554-9057
Related Post: Six Weeks Of Soup: Kenny’s Westside Pub.