Shops and pedestrians along a downtown Evanston street. Photo: wes_sternberg / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Evanston landed on a national style site’s radar in late January 2013, when Refinery29 published a “Day Pass” itinerary titled “10 Things To Do In Evanston.” The piece, written by Rebecca Taras, strings together ten stops that could fill a single day, from a pastry at breakfast to dinner at one of the newer restaurants in town.
Refinery29 covers fashion, trends and shopping, and the Evanston package leaned on that angle. Photos that ran with the feature showed some of the shops and restaurants on the route, including Found and Apple the Second. Found Kitchen & Social House was the dinner recommendation, and the guide called it one of Evanston’s hottest new restaurants.
A day built around food and browsing
The morning started at Bennison’s Bakery, which the guide noted has been making pastries since 1938. The suggestion was coffee with a pastry or doughnut. Lunch went to Soulwich, picked as a quick bite that would not eat into the afternoon. Another stop was Kafein, a coffee shop at 1621 Chicago Ave., where the writer singled out classic coffee drinks, a Mexican hot chocolate, and cakes, pies and ice cream. The introduction also pointed readers toward the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University.
The remaining stops are on Refinery29’s site, and the full list is worth reading for the places not covered here.
Why a day trip works in Evanston
Evanston is easier to cover in a day than many suburbs because so much sits close together. The downtown core is next to the Davis Street stations served by Metra and the CTA, and Chicago Avenue and Fountain Square are a short walk or bus ride apart. A visitor coming up from Chicago without a car can reach most places on a list like this one by train and on foot.
The feature also arrived when restaurants and shops were opening across the city, and a national style outlet reached readers who do not usually follow regional dining coverage. Bakeries, coffee shops and boutiques made up much of the itinerary, a reminder that Evanston’s commercial districts have long depended on locally run businesses of that size.
Source: Refinery29, “Day Pass: 10 Things To Do In Evanston,” Jan. 24, 2013.
Rachel Lindqvist covers community life, the lakefront, dining and the arts for The Evanston Edge.
