Lincoln Square Restaurant Café Selmarie to Close After 4 Decades

CHICAGO — Before they exchanged a word, they had tasted each other’s cakes. A tart from Birgit and a hazelnut cheesecake from Jeanne, traded through a mutual neighbor. When they eventually met, they were fast friends, and six months later, they opened a café together.

That was 40 years ago.

Jeanne Uzdawinis died of ovarian cancer in 2017. And in September, 10 days before Café Selmarie’s 40th anniversary, owner Birgit Kobayashi, 69, announced her retirement and said her European-style restaurant in the heart of Lincoln Square will close in early 2024.

The community has already begun to mourn the loss of not only locally renowned cuisine, but of a special place that has uniquely touched the lives of many. For some, the void may be impossible to fill.

“Hearing the news that it was closing was really, like, my heart just dropped. It was so sad,” said Mareva Lindo, 35, who grew up near Lincoln Square. “It’s just been there for me, like a friend,” she said, and started to cry.

In Lindo’s childhood the storefront was smaller and was situated in a different Lincoln Square, not physically but culturally, she said.

“When we first opened, it was a very sleepy neighborhood. I think it was transitioning from older German folks who had raised their families here,” Kobayashi said.

Kobayashi emigrated to the North Side from Germany at the age of nine, and when she turned 18, she moved to Japan where she learned to bake. Western foods like flour, nuts and whipping cream were difficult to find, she said, but her mother shipped her ingredients.

“I made Linzer Torte in Japan,” she said proudly. “I think from then on, my preference for baking over cooking began.”

When Selmarie opened, it served only coffee and pastries, and while today it operates as a full-service restaurant, its baked goods are widely cherished.

“I’ve had one birthday cake every year, for every birthday of my 35 years of life. Every one of those cakes has been a raspberry marzipan torte from Selmarie,” read Lindo’s comment on the restaurant’s Instagram page.

For Lindo, the café engenders joyful memories with family and friends. But its closure “feels like a harbinger of increasing change to come,” she said, regarding Lincoln Square’s fading Eastern-European influence.

“My mom likes to talk about how she has been taking me there since I was in the womb,” said Lindo, who comes from generations of Viennese bakers.

Brent White, 42, took his wife Megan to Selmarie for their first date in October of 2011.

“She is a baker herself, so I think she really appreciated that,” he said. “But of course, I didn’t know that at the time.”

What Megan didn’t know was that four years later, White would propose to her outside of the same restaurant, with 40 of her friends and family members waiting inside to celebrate their engagement.

Recently, Kobayashi said, there were six parties in the dining room and each had ordered their wedding cake from her.

“That’s the reason they come back,” she said. “Because we mean something to them, and we were part of their lives. I mean talk about satisfaction or rewards; you can’t measure that.”

White said he was “mostly just shocked and surprised” when he heard Selmarie was closing. According to Kobayashi, this was a common sentiment among the community.

“Without fail, that is what comes out of everybody’s mouth. It’s like the holy trinity: ‘I’m distraught, I’m grateful, I’m happy for you,’” Kobayashi said. “Our servers said they feel like they’re grief counselors.”

Though the news was undoubtedly sad, Katie Kraus, associate director of the Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce and a long-time customer, commended Kobayashi and her daughter Connie’s ability to frame it in a positive way.

“It’s a cliche, but this chapter of my life is now closing, and I will take it with me and hold it in my heart,” Kobayashi said.

When asked about her decision to not sell the restaurant, Kobayashi explained the origin of the café’s name: a combination of hers and Uzdawinis’ middle names, Selma and Marie respectively.

“Maybe if it was Café, you know, Lincoln Avenue, it would be a different story,” she said. “There’s a lot of wonderful, fabulous cafes and restaurants out there, and this is mine.”

While a new owner of the space has not yet been determined, Kraus said she thinks it would be nice for a similar establishment to move in. “It’s just a perfect place to have a sidewalk cafe, to sit and have a glass of wine in the evening or a cappuccino in the morning,” she said.

Lindo, who now lives in Providence, Rhode Island, is returning home to Lincoln Square next week and said that she plans to dine there as many times as she can.

Café Selmarie will remain open through the end of the year and will be displaying “a treasure trove” of photos that celebrate its lifetime.

“We had fun, and we’re still having fun,” Kobayashi said. “I don’t know what more I could want.”