For the last few years, folks have debated whether Chicago has matched or eclipsed great North American food towns like New York, San Francisco, or Montreal. While the debate rages on, one factor against our pre-eminence as a serious food town was our lack of fringe specialty food shops. Everyone knows the real top food cities reach a point of saturation where all the mainstream good restaurant ideas are taken and have been replicated a hundred fold and tweaked with zany minor iterations. Thus, the only way to be successful is to pursue culinary improbability, that brand of foodie entrepreneurship that spawns BLT cupcakes, deep fried mayonnaise, Kobe beef and foie gras-topped hamburgers, and Krispy Kreme milkshakes. While it’s true...
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