Author: michael austin
Fulton New Year's
Fulton Lounge, 955 W. Fulton St. (312-942-9500), in the emerging Fulton Market District, is hosting a New Year's Eve party featuring hors d'oeuvres, p [...]
Maxwell Street lounge
Junior's Sports Lounge, which counts Bear legend Gale Sayers as a business partner, officially opens on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Maxwell Street/UIC [...]
Merry Holidays
I couldn't care less about which decorations can or cannot go up at City Hall or the public library, or in the parks. But last week, when I bought my [...]
Best bakery name
Colorado can have its punny Baked in Telluride--a clever name for a bakery in the legendary ski town that is also known for its neo-hippies and their [...]
Bucktown bistros
If it's trendy, you know it's going to show up in Bucktown/Wicker Park in droves. This year it's the wine cafe, offering lots of small plates to shar [...]
Too hot to handle
A customer at a major chain book store in the Loop today was complaining about everything that passed before her eyes. Flipping to the author's page o [...]
Old Lincoln Square
The venerable Old Town School of Folk Music threw its annual holiday party Sunday night at Martyrs', which is about a mile down Lincoln Avenue from th [...]
Hot chocolate choices
It's a dilemma as old as the Free Gift Wrapping With Any Purchase offer. You're shopping downtown, last minute, shivering to the bone, and all you wan [...]
The Air & Baseball Show?
The venerable Studs Terkel, lucid and feisty as ever at 93, spoke to a jam-packed room full of admirers at The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square on Thursd [...]
Monster movie premiere!
Frightening! Spine-Tingling! Tonight only! They'll be rolling out the red carpet in Wrigleyville tonight at 8 p.m. when writer/director Ben Grinnell o [...]
Gold Coast chopper
There was a giant helicopter hovering about 300 feet above the intersection of LaSalle and Schiller in the Gold Coast neighborhood Saturday morning ar [...]
Snow falling on silence
One good thing about a snow storm, if you live and work near the corner of Lincoln and Wells in Old Town, is that everything gets quieter. The truck n [...]
Lee's Loft holds holiday open house
Tiemaker Lee Allison opens his home (which is also his office) this coming weekend, Dec. 10-11, for a Holiday Open House from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. both d [...]
Lions in winter
Lest the Art Institute lions grab up all of the holiday glory with their Christmas wreaths, another Chicago institution, The Second City, has adorned [...]
Pho soup's sake
Not that a bowl of the classic Vietnamese soup, pho, isn't delectable in the dog days of summer (and it is), but when the weather turns ugly--like now [...]
Custom House opens house
With the opening of Custom House restaurant in the Printer's Row neighborhood, chef Shawn McClain now has all of the bases covered. The new steak-cent [...]
Hot restaurant scene complements boom in residential building
Where there's smoke there's fire, and presently the fire is on the back of my palate, courtesy of the "Flores de Jaiba" appetizer at Salpicon, 1252 N. [...]
Lakefront development big as Loop about to put South Chicago on map
It's hard to imagine that any of Chicago's 29 miles of lakefront would be available for development in 2005. It's even harder to believe that a lakefr [...]
The softer side of West Loop living
As I headed south on Green Street one recent Tuesday evening to try a new West Loop restaurant, a pleasant flow of foot traffic stomped west on Madiso [...]