Illinois news

• Reform in reverse at the State’s Attorney’s Office

  04-03-2026 16:24 via chicagoreader.com
  It has been just over a year since Eileen O’Neill Burke took office as Cook County state’s attorney. Now is an appropriate time to assess how her policies are impacting our communities. The state’s attorney is one of the county’s most powerful elected officials, determining who receives mercy and who faces lengthy sentences, whether law […]
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• Best Chicago DJ bottling music into scent

  04-03-2026 16:09 via chicagoreader.com
  Zernell Gillie I first heard of Zernell Gillie when midwest perfumer Alie Kiral (Pearfat Parfum) mentioned him on Instagram, which led me to discover his fragrance House, a lush scent named for the homegrown electronic music style. One whiff and I was back at Smartbar in 2016 with my husband, bodies in motion under the […]
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• Best way to see Black Chicago (and beyond) through a fresh lens

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Suspending disbelief, in film parlance, assumes a poetic faith in which audiences believe in the supernatural to engage with a storyline. The Black Film Club Collective creates an experience that assumes a poetic faith all its own: a lens through which we can communally immerse ourselves into stories that center Black lives. Many of us […]
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• Best vegan restaurant doing comedy and giving back

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  I first heard about Kale My Name in 2020 when it opened in Albany Park during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order, at a time when most restaurants were only offering takeout or closing their doors completely. A mutual friend, Chicago comedian Tina Youkhana, kept posting about it on Instagram, and it stuck in my head. Growing […]
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• Best underground entertainment trend

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  This cultural moment feels medieval. Maybe it’s something about the collapsing of traditional social models, the rise of authoritarian hierarchies, or the spreading of once preventable diseases and viruses that can kill large swathes of people. Perhaps it’s being forced back into Middle Ages–style espionage by ICE and the omnipresence of the technosurveillance state. Whatever’s […]
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• Best third-party food delivery platform inspired by the theories of a late 19th-century Russian anarchist

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  If he were alive today, Pyotr Kropotkin probably wouldn’t recognize a tamal. But the Russian philosopher, who popularized the concept of mutual aid, would definitely understand the principles guiding this five-year-old volunteer bike squad that got its start delivering hundreds of burritos every month to hungry Chicagoans in collaboration with the Chicago Burrito Brigade. Last […]
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• Best team that took over for my tamale vendors as masked federal agents terrorized Chicago

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  The first time I met Martha, I was in sweatpants, walking the dog. Martha, an Albany Park resident since the 80s, and another neighbor were out on a chilly Saturday morning slinging tamales. They’d taken over the stand from its usual vendors, allowing them to stay safer at home during the immigration enforcement surge in […]
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• Best sober-focused music series

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Matt Ciarleglio became co-owner of the Empty Bottle in 2023, but when he started working security at the club in 2010, after a few years playing shows there, he was fresh into adulthood. He worked his way up through different positions (bartender, marketing manager), and along that road, he realized he wanted to get sober. […]
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• Best small bookstore with titles I never knew existed

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Jarvis Square Books There are a few excellent used bookstores in Rogers Park and Edgewater, including Armadillo’s Pillow and Heirloom Books. But with just three hundred square feet, the smallest of the bunch, Jarvis Square Books, most consistently surprises me with titles I haven’t heard of but instantly know I need. On one of my […]
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• Best show to laugh until you cry

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  The first time I saw Second City’s Black Excellence Comedy Revue, I cried real tears from laughing so hard. The 2024 title, Black by Popular Demand, was the second year Chicago’s most acclaimed comedy institution had this very Black show, and my best friend, WBEZ host Sasha-Ann Simons, wanted to cover it for her show. […]
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• Best Ravenswood barber who can give you a sharp cut while regaling you with tales of drumming at the Fireside in the 90s

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  C.J. Heimberger at Northside Barbershop When it comes to sourcing professionals to help maintain my personal hygiene and grooming regimen, I look to my friends. After all, I can see when a buddy has gotten a sharp haircut. (Just don’t ask me how I investigate my friends’ dental work!) When my pal Joe recommended booking […]
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• Best postprotest busking

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  With pink cheeks and icy hands, my wife and I split off from the mass of roughly 30,000 people slow-walking through downtown Chicago in protest. Thousands more across the country were simultaneously marching in unified defiance of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and with this knowledge, I felt the conflicting swells of both hope […]
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• Best police force to protect a murderous army of secret police

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  What would you do if a bloodthirsty horde of fascist soldiers was carrying out a terror campaign in your state? If you’re Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, you’d call a press conference where you menacingly tell the president, “If you come for my people, you come through me.” Then, you’d marshal a small army of local […]
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• Best place to try out your act with the most supportive audience

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Come try out your new material—clowning, puppetry, music, burlesque, poetry, tap dance, or performance art—among the most hyped crowd at Stop Motion Plant’s monthly salon and go home with a new community to call your own. Taking place at venues all around town (even outdoor locations), the cozy aesthetic extends to the group collage that […]
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• Best place to support independent plus-size sellers

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Curvy Con Curvy Con is a joyful, size-inclusive market created by and for fat creatives. It’s also proof that community-centered shopping can be both fun and purposeful. Conceived and produced by Taylor Pasche, the event is run in collaboration with a dedicated team from Fat Theatre Project (FTP), under the artistic direction of Eileen Tull. […]
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• Best place to spot a black-crowned night heron

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  I feel self-conscious calling myself a bird-watcher; I don’t orient my free time around the pursuit of unfamiliar bird species, my grasp of avian taxonomy is almost nonexistent, and I’m reliant on Merlin, the free bird-identification app from Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology, to figure out what winged creatures cross my path 90 percent of […]
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• Best place to see a live possum and vintage taxidermy

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  You may know the Insect Asylum as a quirky storefront in Logan Square where you can explore a whole underrecognized phylum and boop a possum snout all in the same day, but its coolness goes even deeper. Though the storefront opened Earth Day 2022, founder Nina Salem originally kicked things off in 2018 with a […]
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• Best place to meditate with live music

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Times like these demand moments of respite where we can pause, restore, and summon our energy to respond to the rough days now and to come. As we continue to move through the fear and violence inflicted by the federal government on our communities and on our country, we can find power in shared stillness. […]
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• Best place to daydream under a willow tree

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  In the heart of summer, when humidity drapes itself over Chicago, and every creature is out to play, the sounds of bomba, salsa, and reggaeton radiate from speakers at Humboldt Park. Children screech from a swing set in the distance. Longtime neighbors bring out their chairs to sit. Food trucks painted with Puerto Rican flags […]
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• Best place to buy cool guilt-free gifts

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  The shop at Chicago Fair Trade Museum If you ever bought into the myth that ethical shopping is boring or laborious, consider it officially busted. The shop at Chicago Fair Trade Museum at 4704 N. Broadway is one of the city’s most delightful spots to buy gifts with a conscience. It’s the kind of place […]
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• Best place for snack-time bleach

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  There’s a lot to love about Devon Market. Where else can I leave with a stag-shaped bottle of wine, at least five different varieties of panettone, and Cok juice? The grab ’n go section usually has plates of vegan Ethiopian food for $9.99 that are so robust they last me four meals. The produce is […]
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• Best place for an unsettling encounter with wildlife

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Chicago has a wealth of beautiful natural areas. Catherine Chevalier Woods isn’t among its best. Some areas are a little weird, a little dirty, a little sketchy. It’s part of a ragged shred of wilderness east of O’Hare and the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, connected to several other forest preserves to the north and […]
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• Best place for all-day cardamom drinks and community organizing

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Walking Broadway Avenue, just north of Wilson, late at night, one might hear the live music, the surf sound of conversation, and perhaps the hiss of a milk steamer. A few people enter, and the sound amplifies as the door opens. It is well past expected coffee shop hours, and this cafe is buzzing. Nabala […]
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• Best party to alter your reality

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Fever dreams create an uncanny reflection of reality when an elevated body temperature spurs vivid, intense visions. Chicago DJ Mo Mami has turned her own vivid vision into a global rave experience called Fever Dream, and it elevates body temperatures too.  When Mo Mami launched the night in October 2022 (at the Giant Penny Whistle […]
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• Best park to walk in circles with your baby

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  During my first few months of parenthood last summer, each day we all survived was a triumph. When our baby was six weeks old, my spouse had to go back to work part-time. For three days a week, it was just me and my baby sweating on each other. He napped best in motion and […]
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• Best of Chicago, our love letter to the city

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  The choice to exist in a community is holy.  Every pause to say hello to a neighbor on the block, every moment to make sure we’re collectively good, the plucking of thick, waxy greens from a backyard garden for shared nourishment, every swap of the neighborhood broom and shovel (yes, we have communal ones on […]
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• Best of Chicago 2025: Sports & Recreation

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
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• Best of Chicago 2025: Music & Nightlife

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
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• Best of Chicago 2025: Food & Drink

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
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• Best of Chicago 2025: City Life

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
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• Best of Chicago 2025: Buy Local

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
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• Best of Chicago 2025: Arts & Culture

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
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• Best new reason to visit Austin Town Hall Park

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Walk through the main doors of the field house at Austin Town Hall Park, and you’ll be greeted by a few signs for “Unsung Austin—West Side Stories.” Last May, the Chicago Blues Museum debuted this permanent exhibit celebrating the west side’s musical legacy. “Unsung Austin” largely consists of archival photos and explanatory labels, arranged on […]
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• Best new DVD-only analog/digital mash-up video art zine created by a local VJ

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Eyewash is the best kind of underground art object. Something you’d either hear about from that friend who knows about all the coolest basement shows and microcinema screenings or discover yourself when its blue slim case with abstract, glitchy artwork catches your eye at Facets or Chicago Comics, where the “video magazine” is sold. The […]
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• Best new creative agency and production house focused on building community

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel‘s career entwines dramaturgy and journalism. She was the production dramaturg for the 2024 Goodman production of Sanaz Toossi’s English, which had a Broadway run last year. She’s been a freelance contributor for the Reader (and is also a former staff member) and now works as the digital producer and project manager for […]
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• Best new club for queer and trans people getting started with strength training

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Above the Bar landed at its Bucktown brick-and-mortar in 2021 after demand for founder Alex Martinez’s online, social-distance-friendly training club outpaced what his small room for rent would allow. Martinez now runs the trans-owned and operated gym on Western Avenue, employing eight coaches and serving 160 members. The spot offers group training, personal training, open […]
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• Best new Chicago film podcast hosted by a Music Box employee and a Chicago journalist

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Like so many podcasts, Four Stars: A Chicago Film Podcast grew out of talks between friends. Jeremy Marder, a Music Box manager, and Paco Alvarez, a local journalist, have been friends since high school, and as they told me in a joint email statement, “have been having long conversations about film since then.” Over time, […]
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• Best new bookstore to score vintage books on hippies, drugs, promiscuity, and everything else good and evil

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Perpetual Books Perpetual Books is located somewhere in the nether-zone between Wicker Park and my longtime Ukrainian Village hood, which hasn’t had a bookstore in the 30 years I’ve lived here. Co-owners James Hughes (a former editor of Stop Smiling! magazine, and yes, the son of director John Hughes) and Zylon Tokash (who ran the […]
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• Best mystery social media account that launches paper airplanes from skyscrapers

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Picture a 23-year-old small-town Michigan transplant who’s in the city seven months after trading a Michigan State degree for a logistics job and South Loop apartment. So begins adulting. Picture a boring day at work, a hastily folded Post-it paper airplane, and an urge to open the window and let ‘er rip. A few weeks […]
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• Best movie screening to help send off Chicago Film Society from its longtime home at Northeastern Illinois University’s auditorium

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Last May, the Chicago Film Society (CFS) bid adieu to Northeastern Illinois University’s auditorium with a screening of Vincente Minnelli’s 1953 musical rom-com The Band Wagon. CFS began hosting repertory screenings at NEIU in 2015, and I have to assume the nonprofit would’ve continued programming there had the school not made the call to renovate […]
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• Best monthly party where you can smoke the whole garden, eat free food, and watch some of Chicago’s best MCs

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Chicago rappers Rich Jones and ShowYouSuck (aka Clinton Sandifer) met through the city’s DIY scene more than a dozen years ago, and they’ve been friends ever since. (I’m part of that scene myself, and I’d consider both of them friends too.) They’ve featured on each other’s projects and shared the bill at many shows. Though […]
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• Best mommy and me boutique with baby clothes cute enough for a doll

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  BabyDolls Boutique On a cold December night, I stepped into BabyDolls Boutique on Southport. I’m in the middle of my surrogacy journey, and I was hoping to find something sweet to hold onto while waiting for my little one. Inside feels like a daydream you can shop. A surreal bow mural adorns the wall, and […]
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• Best low-key, goth-inspired, queer-positive hair salon

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Fern & Moody Salon Hot tip from this Gen Xer who thinks of their hair as the perfect medium to convey their outlook to the world: Never trust a hair salon whose interior doesn’t speak directly to your heart. Fern & Moody speaks to mine through its perfect “dark academia” aesthetic while providing what I need […]
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• Best little stationery shop that could

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Paper & Pencil Pen and paper nerds travel from near and far for the chance to poke around this cozy Andersonville shop. Paper & Pencil is known for carrying all of the best stationery. Much of their wares are Japanese, but they also stock local treasures, like the latest Field Notes notebooks.   Paper & Pencil is […]
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• Best leaf-wrapped brick of deliciousness

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Vietnamese and Vietnamese-adjacent people don’t need me to tell them about bánh chưng, not any more than my fellow white folks need me to explain that fruitcake exists. But maybe, like me, you’ve been shamefully slow to try all the glossy green leaf-wrapped packets sold at bakeries, restaurants, and grocery stores in Uptown’s Asian enclave. […]
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• Best Latina-owned inclusive wellness studio building strength together

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Walking into a wellness room where you are the only Latina can make self-care feel like a test; after I was mocked in a beginner Pilates class for not knowing how to use a reformer machine, a friend told me to try the Latina Sweat Project in Pilsen. In my first class, the room held […]
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• Best kid play space that shows up for immigrant families

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  “As a former preschool teacher, I was drawn to La Casa Playroom because I had rarely seen a space like it on the southwest side. Owner Angie Maciel tells me she created La Casa for that exact reason: to give Brighton Park families a playroom to call their own. It operates as both a children’s […]
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• Best informal dining spot where you can order lepeshka after 11 PM on a Wednesday

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Albany Park has the broadest array of international dining options of any neighborhood in the city. Stand at the nexus of Lawrence and Kedzie, pick a direction, and you’ll have more restaurants you can explore in two blocks than your stomach can accommodate over the course of a few weeks. That is, of course, if […]
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• Best indication that legal cannabis use has become normalized for good or ill

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  $25 off coupons for Okay Dispensary on the backs of Jewel receipts In fall 1994—as far as my brain allows me to recollect—I went to Great America (now known as Six Flags Great America) with three college friends. I rode shotgun with one pal while the other two drove separately. One of the friends in […]
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• Best improvising tubaist

  04-03-2026 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  How many improvising tubaists does Chicago even have? Is this the compliment I mean it to be? I’ll tell you what makes Beth McDonald such a fun person to have in our improvised-music scene, and you can decide.  First off, banish the oompah shit from your head. This is not that kind of tuba. McDonald […]
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