The Blue Café is really a love story. Nearly 30 years ago in West Lafayette, Indiana young Paul was trying to find his place at Purdue University. He was immediately drawn to the culture he found in a small coffee shop owned by a Puerto Rican woman named Iris.

The original Blue Café was run by students who were cultural misfits with leather jackets, funky hair, and listened to alternative music. The staff on each shift would play their own music selections and most evenings had coffee shop had live music from local bands.

Within a few months Paul started working there and even gigged a few evenings with hisown band. Young Karen was also a student at Purdue and found her way to the Blue Café. She and many of her close friends spent a lot of time there to take in the coffee and atmosphere. And though they both knew most everyone who frequented the small coffee shop, Karen and Paul did not know
each other. They eventually met the spring of Karen’s senior year at a local dance club, and agreed to meet for coffee which would be their first date at the Blue Café.

Now married 25 years, Karen and Paul could think of no better way to celebrate their love than to open a reincarnation of the place they both remember so fondly.