A Princeton coffee roaster opened quietly at Clark and Dickens.
🍽 ON THE PLATE
Sākrid Coffee is open. The Princeton, New Jersey-based specialty roaster — founded by Serge Picard and Jonathan Haley on the premise that the first sip of the morning should actually mean something — has opened its first Chicago location at 2060 N. Clark, in a corner space at Clark and Dickens. The shop has a 1,200-square-foot room designed for the kind of quiet focus that's hard to find: house-roasted espresso, lattes, and cold brew, done with the obsessive care of people who genuinely care where the beans come from. The Princeton original became a neighborhood institution — regulars sprint back in to claim open seats, which tells you everything. Early reviews from neighbors here are glowing. Hours are morning-focused; go before noon. Follow them at @sakridcoffeechi.
Dimmi Dimmi is the corner spot Armitage has been waiting for. The Italian-American restaurant that opened last August at 1112 W. Armitage — in the old Tarantino's space — was built by Cornerstone Restaurant Group around chef Matt Eckfeld, who came up at Carbone in New York before returning to Chicago. The room fills up fast. The Calabrian dirty martini is the move at the bar. The handmade pastas and the stuffed shells in spicy vodka sauce are the reason to stay. If you haven't been, go on a Tuesday when the bar isn't three deep. Hours: Tue–Wed 4–9pm, Thu–Fri 11am–10pm, Sat–Sun 11am–10pm.
📅 MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Tonight: a lost Bach masterpiece, one night only, in Lincoln Park. Bach in the City — the new period-instrument ensemble based at St. Vincent de Paul Church on Webster — is performing the Midwest premiere of Bach's St. Mark Passion tonight at 7:30pm. The score has been lost since 1731; what survives is the libretto and the belief that Bach recycled music from his Funeral Ode and other works to build it. British musicologist Malcolm Bruno reconstructed the piece; Music Director Richard Webster composed the recitatives and crowd choruses expressly for this performance. It might be the first time any version of this Passion has been performed in Chicago in over 40 years. One night only, at 1010 W. Webster. Tickets from $30 at bachinthecity.org.
First day of spring. The vernal equinox lands Friday, March 20 — the lakefront is yours again. Take the long way home this weekend.
🌿 GET OUTSIDE
The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool is open and worth the detour. Tucked behind Fullerton and Stockton, the Lily Pool is the best-kept secret in Lincoln Park — a hidden garden designed by landscape architect Alfred Caldwell to feel like a Midwestern prairie river, complete with a stone walkway, council ring, and native plantings. It's open dawn to dusk and free. This is the exact week it starts to come alive. The Lincoln Park Conservancy runs monthly wildflower walks here, and the first of the season is right around the corner. Most people who've lived in the neighborhood for years have never found it.
Lincoln Park has a running track almost nobody uses. Up near Cricket Hill at Montrose, the Park District built an eight-lane, 400-meter rubberized track — competition-grade, surrounded by turf fields, open to the public. No membership, no fee, no crowds. The surface is designed to absorb impact in a way that asphalt and concrete don't, which makes it noticeably easier on the legs. If you've been running the lakefront path all winter and your joints are telling you something, this is the alternative.
QUICK HITS
Foundry Park is happening. City Council approved the $3 billion successor to the Lincoln Yards development in February — thousands of housing units, retail, a riverwalk, and a potential extension of the 606, anchored by a 39-story tower at Kingsbury and Cortland on Lincoln Park's western edge. Ground could break this fall. The site has been an industrial placeholder for years. That era is over, and the neighborhood is about to have a very different western border.
The Inn at Lincoln Park is getting its second life. The four-story building at 601 W. Diversey — built in 1916, converted to a Comfort Inn in the '90s, later the Inn at Lincoln Park, vacant for years — finally has a renovation permit and active construction underway. Developer Validus Capital is converting it into 40 apartments with ground-floor retail. Worth watching: the same team has already proposed a nine-story mixed-use building on the adjacent parking lot at 607 W. Diversey. That quiet corner by Lehmann Court is about to look very different.
See you next Friday.
— The 60614