H2O House’s Scalp Massage The best part of a haircut is the shampoo, right? Now imagine a one-hour luxe version of that. At H2O House, a new spa offering head and foot care, you can have that magical experience — if you can get in, that is. There was a 10-week wait this spring, and with good … Read more
Best new niche bookstores Can’t decide what to read next? Skip the behemoth that sells everything and visit one of these genre-specific bookstores. For comics lovers Howling Pages Most comic book shops offer 80 percent Marvel and DC, with a smattering of indie comics and graphic novels. Alain Park’s store, which opened last year, flips … Read more
Taylor Byas’s I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times Taylor Byas is just now releasing her debut full-length poetry collection, but she’s already making a case for herself as a literary descendant of fellow Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks. Like Brooks, the 27-year-old Byas turns the everyday aspects of life into the exuberantly extraordinary. Byas, who grew … Read more
Louis Tomlinson’s “Chicago” Songs titled “Chicago” are usually performed by Midwesterners, such as Michael Jackson or Sufjan Stevens. That makes Yorkshire-born Louis Tomlinson an outlier. Tomlinson’s rendition spotlights an anonymous ex-partner now living in the city, with a new child and new life, to whom he semidespondently croons, “If you’re lonely in Chicago, you can … Read more
Mia Lee In January, visual artist Mia Lee traveled to Ghana, accompanied by two fellow South Siders: Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa. The rappers were putting on the inaugural Black Star Line Festival, a celebration of the global Black community. The trip was the culmination of Lee’s collaboration with Chance on “Yah Know,” his … Read more
Notre With its understated aesthetic and low-key sales approach, the West Loop boutique has been a go-to for Chicago guys and visiting music industry celebs (Adam Levine, Travis Scott) since 2019. Now it’s embarking on a new era by introducing womenswear. Plenty of it. “We had a lot of guys that would come in with … Read more
Tink’s Thanks 4 Nothing Tink is the prevailing mistress of Chicago R&B, a 28-year-old soprano whose Aaliyah-like head voice you could reasonably call angelic. Over the course of four albums and many online-only mixtapes, she has perfected a delicate balancing act: cherubic sweetness intermixed with saucy chutzpah. After she signed with megaproducer Timbaland’s Mosley Music … Read more
Miyagi Records The Japanese surname Miyagi translates to “shrine fortress,” and that’s how co-owners Nigel Ridgeway and Marco Jacobo see their new record shop, which began as an online-only store in 2019 but opened a brick-and-mortar location in April: a place to both honor and protect the music they love, some of it made not … Read more
As paper books become a niche product, niche retailers have become the best place to buy and sell them.
