It’s been 13 years since I first moved to Logan Square and 15 years since Jason Hammel and his wife, Amalea Tshilds, opened Lula. Once an oasis in a food desert, the eclectic all-day cafe is now the flagship of a culinary and cultural sea change. “Jason took a huge risk coming here early on,” says Matthias Merges of Yusho, a hip, yakitori-inspired spot on Kedzie that offers a selection of small plates as affordable as they are addictive. On the heels of Yusho, which opened in 2010 and quickly became a critical darling, Merges introduced Billy Sunday, just around the corner from Lula, in January. It is perhaps a testament to Merges’s reputation that Details magazine named it one of the best new bars in America weeks before Billy Sunday opened its doors, lauding the spot as “a cozy parlor in the up-and-coming Logan Square hood.”
One of my first memories of Logan Square is my mother’s face as my parents drove away. We’d just moved my things into my first grown-up apartment, on Altgeld, and I stood on the stoop, waving good-bye. My mother cast a look backwards, clearly wondering if she’d ever see me again. Nights were a cacophony of car alarms. Gunshots weren’t frequent, but they certainly weren’t rare. Most of my meals came from a convenience store called TJ’s Pantry on Fullerton, prepared by the loving hands of Chef Boyardee, while my roommate seemed to subsist entirely on Starbursts and milk. Stumbling upon Lula one day, we were surely saved from slow, dyspeptic death.
“The Ukrainian Village is only about two miles away but wow, what a difference in clientele,” says Mauro, digging into a bowl of spaghetti alla chittara with pork shoulder and fresh chickpeas. (“I pretty much always get the pasta when I’m able to come here—but I don’t get out much.”) Mauro and Merges have joined me for lunch while Hammel has excused himself to work. I ask what the biggest difference has been between the Ukrainian Village and Logan Square, and Mauro is unequivocal in his response.
“We make decisions collaboratively, by talking to guests and staff, getting feedback,” says Mauro. “We now know that Logan Square loves their IPA. We didn’t have a single one on the menu at first.”
“I don’t exactly know why,” Mauro says. “It may have been an issue of branding. People just couldn’t get past the name ‘Jam.’ But it also could have been that we were having an identity issue at dinner. First we were doing tastings, then blue plate specials. It was kind of like, ‘What the hell are we and why aren’t we telling people what we are?’”
