Photo: Anna Knott
 

Take your pick from the chalkboard at Edgewater's new Sauce and Bread Kitchen.

To conceive Sauce and Bread, an Edgewater spot you could consider the archetypal neighborhood café, Anne Kostroski and Mike Bancroft married their foods. Crumb, her bread biz, joined up with Co-op Sauce, his small-batch hot sauce venture, which supports the youth arts education project he founded.

Since opening in March, Kostroski kisses babies and engages customers as they jockey for one of the 25 seats, eager to tuck into a crumpet breakfast sandwich with housemade maple sausage. Bancroft pops up from behind piles of spicy mole cookies and bacon-cheddar scones as an exuberant young voice chirps, “Hi, Uncle Mike!”

From the retail shelves, pasta sauce, Bloody Mary mix, and Kostroski’s bread-stick-like taralli beckon. From now on, it’s always sunny in Edgewater.

Sauce and Bread Kitchen, 6338–40 N. Clark St., 773-942-6384.