Name: Lutz Cafe & Pastry Shop
Address: 2458 W Montrose Ave, Chicago, IL, 60618
Telephone: (773) 478-7785
Price range: $$

Lutz Cafe & Pastry Shop

Lincoln Square · German/European Pastry Community-sourced, unverified

📍 2458 W Montrose Ave, Chicago, IL 60618

Lutz Cafe & Pastry Shop has been turning out traditional European pastry in the same Lincoln Square spot since 1948, built as a genuine German konditorei — the kind of confectionery cafe built around fancy, technique-heavy sweets rather than a casual bakery case.

The strawberry whipped cream cake and housemade strudel from a German confectionery cafe that's been in the same Lincoln Square spot since 1948.

The business did change hands once: Howard Gould bought the shop from the Lutz family in 2003, but kept the recipes and the name intact rather than rebranding around new ownership, and the site's own tagline, 'Favorite Since 1948,' leans into that continuity rather than hiding it. The strawberry whipped cream cake gets the most prominent billing on the current menu, available by the full cake or the slice, with cherry pie, strudel, tortes, tarts, cookies, and chocolates filling out a case built on recipes the site describes as having stayed in the Lutz family for generations even after the ownership change. Hours run long — open from early morning into the evening seven days a week, stretching to 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays — more a full-day European cafe schedule than a typical bakery that closes by early afternoon.

The restaurant's phone number has stayed identical for at least the last decade and a half, a small but genuine signal of institutional stability in a business this old. No happy hour applies to a pastry shop, but a 75-plus-year-old German cafe still serving the same style of whipped cream cake it always has is its own kind of standing deal with the neighborhood.

Hours

Mon-Thu7am-8pm

Fri-Sat7am-9pm

Sun8am-8pm (per chicago-bakery.com)

🥡 Takeout unconfirmed 📞 (773) 478-7785

Amenities & accessibility

❔Takeout: unverified

❔Wheelchair access: unverified

Location

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Lutz Cafe & Pastry Shop

Lutz Cafe & Pastry Shop has been turning out traditional European pastry in the same Lincoln Square spot since 1948, built as a genuine German konditorei — the kind of confectionery cafe built around fancy, technique-heavy sweets rather than a casual bakery case.

Specials at Lutz Cafe & Pastry Shop