AFTER Jeff Grant and Jane Kupersmith opened Hopscotch Coffee B-Line Cafe along a stretch of Bloomington’s popular converted rail trail in 2015, they eagerly awaited a restaurant to open next door. They waited for years. “It just never happened,” Grant says. And so, a year ago next month, they opened one themselves. At Hopscotch Kitchen, customers order from a brief but inspired menu assembled by a staff that originally included both a bread specialist and a fermentation specialist. Hefty rice bowls range from a Red version that contains kimchi and jalapeño brine and a Green one with ’shroom bacon. Among the fine-tuned sandwiches, a roast lamb panino is layered with cheddar, pickled onion, housemade mustard, cashew cream, fig jam, and a bright green pop of the Yemeni hot sauce, schug. The lineup, as well as occasional movie nights and science lectures, appeals to a clientele that Grant describes as “college folks who are a little more settled in town.” 235 Dodds St., Bloomington, 812-369-4500, hopscotchcoffee.com
