There’s a new exotic wood showroom in town. San Juan Ventures, based in Bali, exports wood from all over Indonesia to the United States. The company’s flooring has been available through Holly Hunt and Birger Juell in the Mart and its furniture and architectural elements, through de Giulio Kitchen Design in Wilmette, but last week, the company opened a freestanding showroom at 664 W. Hubbard, managed by Kandis Wrigley. I stopped by for the opening party and was floored (pun intended) by the showroom. It’s open by appointment only and mostly caters to design pros.

—JAN PARR

" />      

There’s a new exotic wood showroom in town. San Juan Ventures, based in Bali, exports wood from all over Indonesia to the United States. The company’s flooring has been available through Holly Hunt and Birger Juell in the Mart and its furniture and architectural elements, through de Giulio Kitchen Design in Wilmette, but last week, the company opened a freestanding showroom at 664 W. Hubbard, managed by Kandis Wrigley. I stopped by for the opening party and was floored (pun intended) by the showroom. It’s open by appointment only and mostly caters to design pros.

—JAN PARR

" />      

There’s a new exotic wood showroom in town. San Juan Ventures, based in Bali, exports wood from all over Indonesia to the United States. The company’s flooring has been available through Holly Hunt and Birger Juell in the Mart and its furniture and architectural elements, through de Giulio Kitchen Design in Wilmette, but last week, the company opened a freestanding showroom at 664 W. Hubbard, managed by Kandis Wrigley. I stopped by for the opening party and was floored (pun intended) by the showroom. It’s open by appointment only and mostly caters to design pros.

—JAN PARR

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Year: 2009

San Juan Ventures

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There’s a new exotic wood showroom in town. San Juan Ventures, based in Bali, exports wood from all over Indonesia to the United States. The company’s flooring has been available through Holly Hunt and Birger Juell in the Mart and its furniture and architectural elements, through de Giulio Kitchen Design in Wilmette, but last week, the company opened a freestanding showroom at 664 W. Hubbard, managed by Kandis Wrigley. I stopped by for the opening party and was floored (pun intended) by the showroom. It’s open by appointment only and mostly caters to design pros.

—JAN PARR

Kuma’s New Neighbor

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The very location that killed MoJoe’s Hot House coffeeshop will likely save Square Bar & Grill. The storefront sits on a relatively unremarkable stretch of Belmont, which otherwise might doom the newly opened spot to a short lifetime of thin crowds. But as anyone who has ever elbowed her way into—or been turned away from—Kuma’s Corner knows, this is a block that could use a plan B…

On the Market: Heart of Glass, Old Town

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It must be nice to have an architect like Rodrigo del Canto for a father. When his two daughters were young, del Canto built them a rooftop pool above the garage of the family’s Lincoln Park home. A few years ago, designing a new home in Old Town for himself and the two girls—teenagers by…

Debra Weninger

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How does she do it? How does designer Kara Mann  just keep finding more and more cool stuff for her showroom (above Hubbard Street in a huge, airy space with black-painted walls and floors)? I’m wowed every time I go there, never more so than last week, when she threw a party in celebration of her newest line, by Debra Weninger Design. Weninger, a Holly Hunt alum (you may remember we included Weninger in our feature about Holly Hunt grads who go on to do big stuff of their own in our May/June 2008 issue), has a couch, a sexy table, terrific mirrors, and these fab chairs, embroidered by Holland & Sherry, on display. 

—JAN PARR

Got Twenty Bucks?

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Eat Here. Now.
More often than not, we know all about any remotely promising restaurant months before it serves its first meal, but every now and then, a true gem comes out of nowhere. Han 202 (605 W. 31st St.; 312-949-1314), a chic 38-seat Amercian/pan-Asian BYO that opened two months ago in Bridgeport, is just such a place. Guan Chen, the chef-partner and his wife, Yan Ruan (former owners of Evanston’s Nine Fish), push the envelope with their prix fixe menu (five courses; $20. “That’s nice value, right?” asks Ruan, in the understatement of the year). On a recent visit…

Neality TV

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Tapping into nostalgia for classic shows and movies, Neal Sabin has built plucky Weigel Broadcasting—operator of WCIU, Me-TV, and the new This—into a regional TV dynamo 

Fashion Columbia 2009

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On Tuesday, May 12 more than 250 fashionistas, Chicago fashion industry professionals, and media gathered at the Harold Washington Library Winter Garden for Fashion Columbia 2009 to celebrate the senior collections of 13 Columbia College Chicago fashion design students. Afterwards, guests met with the designers during a Designers’ Circle where they had an opportunity to view their portfolios, place orders, and make appointmetns with the designers. Proceeds benefited the Nena Ivon Scholarship Fund for fashion design and fashion retail management.