“I have owned a business in this area for 14 years and I've lived within a few blocks of Parsonage cafe for almost 20 years. The Cafe itself was founded in 1989, and we took over in 2006.”

 “It's kind of cool to be in this neighborhood because it's like a village inside a city… I know when my kids were really little, if one of them wandered out the front door they would probably have known the first three or four people that they came across. It's just that kind of community, it’s really nice to live in and be around.”

“In this whole area, there are alot of people who have strong opinions about how the neighborhood should evolve. And it's pretty interesting because sometimes you'll be going to meetings about one issue where you're on the same side of someone. Then you will go to the next meeting about some other issue and that same person is opposing you on a different topic and you kind of have to agree to disagree, that's how we get along anyways. That’s what's good about this neighborhood.”

Does any person or group in North Park come to mind when you think about “community superheroes”? 

”There's a woman who lives at the end of this block who is super active in the North Park Community. When the streets are too busy she's out organizing people to control traffic, she delivers flyers out to the houses to petition for the city to get traffic calming infrastructure. She's always really good and helps to advocate for the community.” 

Three words to describe North Park?

“Village, Community and Walkable.”

Ben Cram, Parsonage Cafe (Personal interview March 10, 2020)