Chicago Reader writes about food… not news. (Well, it is to us, but not to the news news.) Reader writes about the segregated, troubled west side… also not news. Reader writes about food on the troubled west side… now we’re intrigued. Mick Dumke, who is on the news and politics side, writes about Turkey Chop, a new restaurant in West Humboldt Park started in part because of the efforts of a local development council in the beleaguered neighborhood, whose new director, Chet Jackson, partnered with Quentin Love, the owner of the south side healthy food chain Quench:
Jackson and Love worked out an arrangement under which the development council would buy and renovate the space. Love, along with his business partner, Goldie Fleming, would commit to opening a sit-down restaurant named Turkey Chop; should they decide to franchise it in the future, the council would have the option of joining as an investor.
Small business as the answer to disintegrating communities? Who’d have thought it in the land of the Machine and the TIF? (It’s so… Milton Friedman.) Read the whole thing to see how a few people and a few businesses try to make a difference.
