“A little taste of the South Side” has popped up inside 875 North Michigan Avenue, the building once known as the John Hancock Center.
A group of South Side food businesses have set up shop for a spell to get more exposure and give the Magnificent Mile a little more flavor.
The food offerings range from baked goods and confections to spice rubs and local honey. A single stand inside the building aims to highlight the businesses at a market from World Business Chicago, an economic development organization focused on increasing tourism downtown and food entrepreneurship citywide.
”It provides opportunities for these food businesses to have exposure outside their neighborhoods,” said Tamieka Hardy of the Greater Chatham Initiative, a development group that picked the businesses — Lem’s Bar-B-Q, Essie Marie’s dressings and Comer Crops’ raw honey from the Gary Comer Youth Center.
“It’s a little taste of the South Side,” Hardy said, and it offers a chance to spread the word about some “great food and dining experiences.”
The Chicago Food Stop market will remain open until mid-March, although the lease might be extended. Located on the ground floor facing Michigan Avenue, the market is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays; until 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; and from 12 to 6 p.m. on Sundays.
Natalia Kapani, World Business’ director of public investment strategy, said the market is partially supported by funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act directed at boosting food businesses that may have suffered during the pandemic.
It’s also meant to remind Chicagoans and tourists of the city’s dynamic food scene.
“Chicago has always been on the cutting edge of feeding the nation, so this is about making sure people don’t forget that story,” Kapani said.
An exhibition with historical food-related photographs from the Chicago History Museum highlights that history.
Among the options at the South Side stand is Ms. P’s Gluten Free from Lisa Walsh, a native of Kenwood.
Walsh got into baking late, at age 42 in 2009. She made the career switch after realizing how poorly gluten made her feel and feeling that gluten-free options available then “tasted like sawdust,” she said.
By 2015, she formalized her business and today, her granola can be found in Whole Foods stores around Chicago, but she said the market was a welcome opportunity to expand her gluten-free reach.
“It’s such a good feeling to know that there are opportunities, because for the longest time it was the toughest to be an emerging female, minority-led business,” she said.
After visitors take selfies at a spot inspired by the Bean or another modeled on a CTA train, market managers Chloe Nickson and Peashaiya “Shaiya” Bailey said the job is about steering people away from the Chicago standards of hot dogs and deep-dish pizza toward contemporary options, like Walsh’s gluten-free goods.
“I’m a smell person, so I’m really looking to buy some of these,” said Bailey, 23, holding up a lotion from True2Mi Naturals at the South Side stand.
For Nickson, 19, who is a line cook at a Fulton Market restaurant and considering a career in food, it’s been an eye-opening chance to appreciate different paths she could take. “I am definitely inspired,” she said
Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.
