AYO Foods, the West African frozen food line from Hyde Park couple Frederick and Perteet Spencer, is coming to Mariano’s stores in Chicagoland.
Nearly one year into the coronavirus pandemic, Hyde Park restaurants are uneasily hanging on, and eagerly anticipating an end to the public health crisis that has shattered profits.
A florist and businesswoman since 1984, Donnalear Robinson has seen nothing like the coronavirus pandemic.
With the closing of Michaels, 5104 S. Hyde Park Blvd., at the end of January, the Hyde Park fine arts and crafts community is mourning the loss of a convenient anchor.
Beginning Feb. 1, businesses in the Downtown Hyde Park footprint will be eligible for another $300 rebate for personal protective equipment, cleaning supplies and sanitary sundries from the Special Service Area (SSA) #61 business improvement district.
The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, a University of Chicago–affiliated business incubator and resource hub, announced today that it is launching a start-up accelerator for deep technology.
Hyde Park Cigars will adopt a plan from the city to curb excessive noise, littering and gatherings at the business that have violated pandemic guidelines.
The Michaels store located in the City Hyde Park development, 5105 South Harper Avenue, will close at the end of January.
Naomi Tolbert was raised in southern Illinois by her great-grandmother, who loved baking.
Even as the weather has officially turned cold, the few businesses in Hyde Park with outdoor dining set-ups are hoping to keep them open as long as possible — but, like most other local restaurants, they’re hoping that indoor dining will soon be allowed back in some capacity.
Over the course of the pandemic, restaurants in Hyde Park have banded together through initiatives like the Kenwood Food Project and Feeding Frontliners to provide meals to medical workers and first responders.
Twenty-seven restaurants and bars in Hyde Park and adjacent neighborhoods received $10,000 emergency grants from the city that proprietors say will help them endure bad weather, recession, pandemic and the wait for more aid from Washington.
No business, and especially no Black-owned business on the South Side of Chicago, makes it 50 years without an interesting history behind it.
Anyone who spends $15 or more at one of 52 mid-South Side businesses through Dec. 31 can be entered into a raffle for $100 in gift cards to the local establishments through the South East Chicago Commission's 2020 Small Business Shop Local campaign.
The University of Chicago’s endowment stands at $8.6 billion, and the school’s total assets stand at $17.2 billion, up from $16.7 billion last year, according to its financial statement for fiscal year 2019 through the end of June 2020, released on Nov. 6.
Already months into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Hyde Park retailers are facing a second, even worse surge of COVID-19 at the worst possible time: the holiday shopping season.
Hyde Park restaurants and their employees face an uncertain future as indoor dining will be banned again starting Friday in order to combat the second coronavirus surge in the city.
When the pandemic struck, Bruce Finkelman with the 16" on Center hospitality group began seeking out new ways for talent to fill his array of music venues and restaurants.
The CTA is planning a major renovation to the Cottage Grove Green Line station, including a pedestrian bridge to a new commercial building in Woodlawn built by the nonprofit Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH).
When she was in her twenties, Carol Cheung recalled, she wasn't sure that she wanted to go into the family business. Her grandparents had owned a soybean farm and a restaurant, where they'd serve the tofu made from the legumes they harvested.
The Hawk, Chicago’s winter wind, blew off the lake across the South Side this Saturday, rattling the metal doors of Natty Bwoy Bikes & Boards, one of several shops housed in the shipping containers that make up Boxville, the mall on 51st Street near the Green Line station in Bronzeville.
After three years of training on the South Side lakefront, runner Ian Gonzalez was tired of going to the North Side to get all the items he needed to support his passion for running. He decided to do something about it. In September of this year, he opened the Last Lap Cornerstore in Boxvill…
This year’s South East Chicago Commission (SECC) symposium took place virtually, with entrepreneurs, artists and businesspeople taking stock of the economic landscape in the midst of a sharp recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Local restaurants and bars are balancing the need to make money and promote safety amid the twin crises of pandemic and recession as indoor dining capacity rises to 40%, bars reopen for indoor service and fall arrives.
Customers in Chicago are now allowed to get facials, shaves and other personal services while taking off their masks — a boon to local barbers and estheticians racked by the pandemic shutdown and recession, as well as the customers who depend on them.
Whether because of limited space, logistical issues or lingering concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, only a few health and fitness studios in Hyde Park-Kenwood plan to take up the city's allowed expansion of maximum class sizes from 10 to 15 on Oct. 1, when a number of business guidelines …
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced applications for $220 million more in state Business Interruption Grant (BIG) money, part of Illinois' allocation of federal funds from the CARES Act, will begin on Thursday after the state issued $49 million last month in the first round to business across Illinois.
The 53rd Street Mini Mart may lose up to a quarter of its business and faces layoffs after the City Council passed an ordinance to ban sales of most flavored liquid tobacco products in Chicago, but Alds. Leslie Hairston (5th) and Jeanette Taylor (20th) say the move is the right one for publi…
The Dearborn Denim store on 53rd Street is closing after sales declined around 30% during the coronavirus recession; the target date for the store closure is by Halloween.
A University of Chicago scientist says investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the school, state and federal government could transform Chicagoland and Hyde Park into a global node of quantum research, an emerging, highly applicable field in communications and scientific measu…
Summer may be winding down, but plenty of warm-weather fun is still available.
Earlier this year, West Side native Cheryl Nelson decided to expand her She Fit business beyond Dyer, Indiana, into Chicago, with plans to open fitness studios in South Loop and Hyde Park.
A little more than five months after closing her Vanille outlet in Hyde Park, Sophie Evanoff has partnered with Hyde Park Produce Market to bring her signature pastries back to the neighborhood.
The parking lot nearest to it may be closed, the solstice was seven weeks ago, and 63rd Street Beach is closed, but Reggies on the Beach opened for the 2020 season on Aug. 6.
Bark n Bubbles Doggy Day Spa celebrated held a grand opening ceremony in the Picadilly building at 1433 E. Hyde Park Boulevard on Aug. 1.
Among the 1,500 small and locally owned businesses that got $6.2 million from the city's "Together Now" fund was the Hyde Park Learning Resource Center, which plans to use the money to equip the facility for the pandemic with sanitary supplies, cubicles, outdoor tenting and a new air filtrat…
The city announced an expansion of the Expanded Outdoor Dining Program that will allow bars and taverns to serve liquor on front sidewalks, and all bars and restaurants to serve in outdoor areas that would typically require an Outdoor Patio License.
Hyde Park resident Perteet Spencer and her husband Fred are banking on her Liberian heritage and experience in the food industry as they launch AYO Foods, a line of West African frozen meals.
The Paycheck Protection Program is tied to at least 6,785 jobs at more than 800 businesses and institutions in the area. While money remains in the program, the initial loans, issued in the spring, have largely run their course; recipients face months of recession and pandemic ahead and no g…
Local businesses are preparing for new rules designed to curb the city's increasing number of COVID-19 cases.
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SPRINGFIELD — The application deadline is approaching for one of the key programs driving the state’s equity-centric approach to marijuana legalization, and the state is looking to hire hundreds from disadvantaged communities to review those applications.
Hyde Park's proximity to the University of Chicago and the local business climate as reasons why Aziz Rupshi opened a Wingstop chicken wing restaurant here last month, and he says business is thriving.
Applications are open for the University of Chicago Community Program Accelerator's next program cycle, wherein South Side nonprofits are provided with three years of customized capacity-building support.
After a soft opening last Labor Day weekend, Reggies on the Beach, a bar and grill off 63rd Street with ample outdoor dining, cannot open because the city's beaches are still closed.
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) approved tens of millions of dollars in low-interest, forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans to businesses and nonprofits in Hyde Park, Kenwood, Woodlawn and Washington Park, enabling up to 6,785 area jobs to be retained.
Silver Room owner Eric Williams explains how he used a combination of his savings and a grant from the University of Chicago to remodel and reopen his store at 1506 E. 53rd St.; Williams’ store had been closed due to pandemic lock down until the last weekend in June.
Discussions between restaurants along 53rd Street, the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce and Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) discussing a vehicle road closure to accommodate expanded outdoor dining have stalled.
Hyde Bark, a North Kenwood dog-walking, cat-care and pet-sitting business, has received a $50,000 grant from the city to refurbish a garage into a doggy daycare and boarding facility.
The 61st Street Outdoor Farmers Market opened Saturday morning with new “Covid Era Customer Policies” and practices. Masks are required for entry and pedestrian flow is managed to maintain social distancing.
The tightrope walk between public health and economic reality continues for Hyde Park-Kenwood's restaurants as they begin to offer indoor dining, albeit at just 25% of capacity.
