Ongoing favorite place to sit at the bar or more covertly, at a table, chatting with a friend over the seasonal best. Continuous rotation of ingredients creatively meshed with tradition, their food is divine. Similarly, their personnel is familiar, friendly, fashionable and warm.

Chicago is a gigantic open-air museum of hand painted signs and murals where you can still find gold leaf lettering in shop windows and ghost signs litter the city's brick walls. This handmade sign is on the wall of a Mexican garage near my apartment.

The Joffrey is a world-class, Chicago-based ballet company and dance education organization committed to artistic excellence and innovation, presenting a unique repertoire encompassing masterpieces of the past and cutting-edge works. The Joffrey is committed to providing arts education and accessible dance training through its Joffrey Academy of Dance and Community Engagement programs.

The best new/used bookstore in Chicago––and with every sale, they put money towards buying books for classrooms in the neighborhood schools. Great selection, well organized, helpful staff, and they hold occasional events where they'll stay open late.

Lost Eras has easily become one of my favorite shops to explore; hidden just outside of Chicago, it stretches far and narrow, crowded with lost treasures. Walking through it, it's hard not to begin imagining the stories of the objects that turn up in its walls, and the people that once held them. Not to mention the building itself is a piece of history, as in the 1920's it was home of the night club the "Club Detour" which had many artists play in it's halls such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basey and Ella Fitzgerald.