Best hairstylist chat
Bathsheba Nemerovski from Sparrow Are you an introvert? Are you hip? So you gotta go have you hair styled by Bathsheba Nemerovski, owner of Sparrow. She is traveled, has the best style tips and knows...
View ArticleBest hotel with cool decor and affordable rates
Longman and Eagle It is hard to believe that their rates start at $85 once you see the incredibly tasteful decor of their six rooms featuring artworks by talented local artists such as Stephen Eichhorn...
View ArticleBest place to buy a wedding gift
Asrai Garden This gem of a shop is filled with fresh flowers, terrariums, taxidermy and little trinkets couples with good taste will love to get. All very romantic but also really cool, including...
View ArticleBest place to study Portuguese
Brazil in Chicago Marcelo Jarmendia, one of the leaders of the Brazilian community in Chicago, started this school along with “Casa de Cultura Brasileira,” a foundation dedicated to preserving and...
View ArticleBest place to become an urban cowboy
Alcala’s Western Wear In the wild wild West Town neighborhood, Alcala’s offers the largest collection of cowboy boots in the city. The selection amounts to more than 8,000 boots, made from exotic...
View ArticleBest independent bookstore often overlooked
Sandmeyer’s Sandmeyer’s is the one small book spot in the city that you forget to go to but once you walk back in, you immediately ask yourself: Why did I stop coming here in the first place? From...
View ArticleBest new boutique or shop opened in the last year or so
Edith Hart Not since Sofia has chic been so… well, chic. Edith Hart stocks cutting-edge brands from foreign locales such as Australia (Bec & Bridge, One Teaspoon, Paper Crown, Wildfox) that you...
View ArticleBest shoe repair
Broadway Shoe Repair No shoe is too far gone to benefit from a little TLC at Broadway Shoe Repair. Studded heel? No problem. Broken zipper? They’ll fix it. Simply drop your downtrodden, broken kicks...
View ArticleBest place to buy Brazilian music
Dusty Groove Dusty Groove’s records are classified by categories such as jazz, soul, funk and rock—except for one musical session baptized by the name of a country. Brazil, the land of bossa nova,...
View ArticleBest independent bookstore
The Book Cellar If no such thing as a bookstore existed and you were left the charge to create it, you’d be hard-pressed to outdo tireless but always-cheerful owner Suzy Takacs’ beloved shop in Lincoln...
View ArticleBest flower shop
Fleur Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote “The Earth Laughs in Flowers” adorns the exterior of Fleur in Logan Square. Inside you will giggle like a schoolchild for the sheer cuteness of everything, including...
View ArticleBest record store to dig for 45s
Logan Hardware To dig, you have to get dirty, and no Chicago record store offers that opportunity better than Logan Hardware. It’s easy enough to come by overpriced, carefully catered 45s, and...
View ArticleBest kids shoe store
Piggy Toes Finding the right shoes for your kids can be a hassle, and the ones you got from Payless literally just fall apart at the seams after a month or two of rough use. Piggy Toes in Lincoln...
View ArticleBest new boutique opened in the last year or so
Tusk Tusk, owned and operated by Mary Eleanor Wallace, is the newest addition to what seems to be a developing Armitage Corridor in Logan Square (triangulated with Parsons and Scofflaw). The shop is...
View ArticleBest venue to record a studio-quality live album with your band for cheap
Lincoln Hall Designing a venue with more dead space than live is risky. Given the historical tendency of architects to sculpt speaker-less rooms around natural reverberation points, musicians are...
View ArticleBest place for kitchen gadgets
Williams-Sonoma The store associates are so friendly and won’t make you feel like a dunce for not knowing how to work the pasta-machine attachment. Cute potato mashers and seafood scissors will make...
View ArticleBest cultural combination in a neighborhood grocery store
La Casa Del Pueblo Pilsen is seeing the first signs of the hipster tide—a hookah bar here, a watering hole there, a smattering of vintage shops down 18th Street. Nowhere is this more apparent and...
View ArticleBest garden store
Gethsemane Garden Center Even if you’re not embarking on a new gardening project, you’ll want to stroll Gethsemane’s grounds in Andersonville, just to take it all in. The rows and rows of green, leafy...
View ArticleBest place to get ready for a night out
Goldplaited Sure, we have a couple blow-dry bars in town, but nowhere that you can get your hair and makeup done by seasoned pros. The blowouts and updos are on par with any salon in town and ask for...
View ArticleBest thrift destination for brand-name clothes
Lakeview Brown Elephant If you thrift not for the love of the hunt for that perfect “Mad Men”-era outfit, but because you like your name brand on the cheap, then the nigh-secret brand-name rack section...
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