Photo Courtesy of Love Cafe
Love Cafe latte
Self-care, caffeine and comfort comprise the premise of Love Cafe, 3801 N. Oakland Ave. in Shorewood. Opened in spring of 2024, the establishment combines the coffee shop atmosphere with a yoga studio, producing a cozy, accessible space for sustenance, relaxation and holistic movement. “The mission is to make you feel better when you leave,” owner Kaleigh Atkinson remarks. Love Cafe is open daily from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The idea for the place originated when Atkinson noticed how students at yoga shalas would hang out and socialize for a while after class. “I thought it would be cool to roll off your mat and re-nourish yourself,” she says.
Atkinson first became interested in yoga while a student at UW-Milwaukee. “I was getting my film degree and had to take a dance credit,” Atkinson recalls. “Yoga counted as a credit, so I took my first class and absolutely hated it (laughs). But I had a friend who told me to try Ashtanga instead of Iyengar, and when I saw the teacher demo full primary, my jaw was on the floor.”
That was 18 years ago. Although she stepped away from yoga from time to time, Atkinson remembers how healing it was every time to pick it back up. She has found yoga helps her embrace what is and is not in her control, therefore influencing how she treats herself and others.
Mirror of Life
“I would take it for granted,” Atkinson attests. “Ashtanga yoga has taught me that the mat is your mirror of life, and if you can face that every day by doing these movements, breaths, poses and shapes with your body to make yourself a better person, then that’s the purpose of what it is.”
Fast forward to recent years, Atkinson taught Ashtanga yoga at Soul Collective MKE while running a coffee cart business at Zocalo on the weekends. Once she found the perfect space for her business idea at the corner of Beverly Road and Oakland Avenue, Love Cafe was born.
“The Ashtanga community are our regulars, but you can walk in here and care less about yoga,” Atkinson assures. “How cool this can be if it’s the seed or spark to spirituality and movement, but it absolutely does not have to be.”
Crafting Specialties
Photo Courtesy of Love Cafe
Love Cafe jackfruit tamales
Love Cafe carries traditional coffee, espresso and tea drinks in addition to crafted specialties like the Electric Love, made with house-made ginger ale, blueberry sage syrup and Topo Chico, and the Purple Drink, which is ube-sweetened coconut milk and two shots of espresso. Wholesome, colorful smoothies come in flavorful varieties. Unique to the cafe are beverages featuring ceremonial cacao, the rawest form of chocolate, blended with different adaptogenic herbs to support a calmer nervous system.
“It’s an amalgamation of traveling and what helped heal me wherever I was,” Atkinson notes about the menu. “I was in a lot of spiritual spaces, and what was most healing to me was sitting in coffee shops where I didn’t feel alone.”
Hefty breakfast burritos are made with two fluffy eggs, roasted sweet potato, bell peppers and spiced black beans, served with a choice of red or green salsa. The cafe’s take on a classic breakfast sandwich puts two fluffy eggs, gouda, spinach and lemon garlic aioli on house salted focaccia. The jackfruit tamales, a favorite, are vegan and gluten free, made with blue corn masa, caramelized onions, roasted garlic, tomato and hibiscus.
Online ordering is available. Coffee beans from Sugar Leaf Roasterie, canned and bottled drinks, apothecary products, Love Cafe merchandise and plants are all for sale in-store. “I’m excited for the holiday season,” Atkinson adds.
Girl Dinner
On Wednesday evenings, Love Cafe hosts Girl Dinner from 4 to 8 p.m., which is a play on high tea but Milwaukee style. “It’s fun, snacky, beautiful things meant to bring you together to share,” Atkinson describes. Girl Dinner features a menu that changes weekly, with past items including carrot sesame salad, pumpkin chili crisp hummus, Detroit-style margherita pizza and chilled ginger scallion noodles. “It’s for everyone, not just for girls,” Atkinson laughs.
Love Cafe offers Mysore-style Ashtanga yoga classes in two hour blocks, six days a week, with several membership options. Classes Monday through Friday allow students to work through poses at their own pace, while with Saturday’s class, students all do the same poses together. Some classes are available virtually, and others involve modalities like acupuncture or somatic coaching. The full schedule and membership info can be viewed at ashtangamke.com
In addition to her regular classes, Atkinson teams up with fellow wellness practitioners and coaches for pop-up community events. Past collaborations have involved Parisa Yoga Shala and Anne Argeropoulos for kirtan and sound healing, Nathan Wilton for an injury prevention seminar, Sara Lynn for a workshop around unconditional self-love, plus many more.
Guest speakers have also come to share deeply personal stories. Activist Shannon Ross, who had previously been incarcerated for seventeen years and now engages in de-carceral and restorative justice work around Milwaukee, spoke for Love Cafe’s “Breaking Bread in the Dayroom” event. “That night, we did a fine dining flip on prison food while we heard stories from inside prison,” Atkinson explains. “It was my favorite event we’ve ever done.”
Atkinson affirms that Ashtanga yoga has played a monumental role in her own healing and mental health journey. “I tell people that this place is a creation of all of the things that saved my life. We’re all on different paths, and I can’t heal you, but I can show you what I did with a space where hopefully you can explore some of the things that can save yourself, and that’s my mission.”
Outside of Love Cafe, Kaleigh Atkinson is an installation artist, writer, photographer and videographer who abides by the mantra, “we are the walking wounded.” Visit her website at https://www.kaleighatkinson.com/.
