In less than five hours those of you planning on attending the reader meetup this evening will finally be able to taste what I've been writing about for weeks. Yesterday I finally had an opportunity to sample the final, carbonated, dry-hopped Sai-Shan-Tea. To say that it's exceeded my expectations is an understatement. more ›

I had such a great time participating in Hideout's Soup and Bread series last year that when Martha Bayne was putting together this year's schedule I immediately signed on for a return engagement. This time around, however, I'm bringing reinforcements. more ›

It's getting colder and the first snowflakes of the season may fall later tonight so it's time to think about holiday parties. Including ours! It's been a while since we've done our reader meet-ups on a regular basis so we're excited to bring them back and meet all of you, the awesome readers who make this site fun and worthwhile. Ric Hess, Phil Kuhl and the fine folks at Sheffield's (3258 N. Sheffield, 773-281-4989) have graciously allowed us the use of their Beer School bar for the occasion. We're also using this as an opportunity to give back during the holidays, also making it a canned food drive benefiting the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which is seeing a greater demand for its services in this recession. So if you come, please bring a can or two of food along with you to donate. more ›

Back in the early days of this-little-website-that-could we used to make it a practice of actually trying to meet our readers at a pre-arranged location to have some drinks, have a good time away from the flat-screen glow, get to know each other and (most important) thank you for choosing to spend a portion of your day reading Chicagoist. As you can see from this Flickr set, these "Reader Happy Hours" were very fun. more ›