Cold Comforts
Behind the gilt-lettered awnings and plate glass on the first floor of the landmark pink Edgewater Beach apartment building stands a soda fountain that first opened in 1927. The ambience trumps the ice cream at the original marble counter and lone table: along with coffee, a few sandwiches, salads, and homemade soups there’s a standard selection of Blue Bonnet sundaes, splits, shakes, malts, and sodas. —Elizabeth M. Tamny
$1-9 pm Tuesday-saturday, 4-9 PM sunday | Closed Monday
Berry Chill635 N. State | 312-266-2445
The delectable sweets of Judy Contino, former Ambria pastry chef and Lettuce Entertain You corporate pastry chef, are the attraction at this Lakeview bakery. Each day there’s a light lunch menu—a soup, a couple sandwiches, salads, and quiche. Dessert might be a rich butter-crusted apple bistro tart, but the absolute winner when it comes to pastry is the brioche, its buttery egg dough by far the best in town. Ice cream, made in-house year-round, is also outstanding: “In my gastrocosmology,” writes Reader critic Nicholas Day of the chocolate, “this is the ice cream that immediately precedes the rapture.” —Laura Levy Shatkin
$ 11 am-11 PM sunday-thursday, 10 am-midnight friday & saturday
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It’s a long way from Malaika Marion’s first Chicago job at Planet Hollywood to her “soup, sandwich, and shake shack” on the western fringe of Logan Square. Most recently a manager at Lula Cafe, Marion’s lived in the neighborhood for years, and when she saw the teeny Armitage storefront she knew the time was right to break out on her own. With help from her husband, Adam Lebin (formerly the GM at Red Light) she’s turned the space into a sunny, six-table destination for hearty down-home standards like a gooey grilled peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich and beefarific chili laced with head-clearing handfuls of cumin and chile (a vegan version is also available). The daunting Reuben—a popular choice based on an unscientific peek at the other tables—comes piled with thick folds of corned beef topped with the traditional Thousand Island dressing and melted Swiss, plus grilled onions. There’s also rich mac ‘n’ cheese, meatball subs, Goose Island root beer floats, and daily soup, sandwich, and dessert specials (one week it was Lebin’s grandmother’s brownies). —Martha Bayne
