The second part of our Saturday in Chicago consisted of wandering the city street looking at specialty shops. Before our trip a couple of alumni (Levi Borreson and Erin) were gracious enough to create maps for us to various specialty shops around the city. In addition to some of the shops on this list my group mates (Alissa Rader and Nicole Steffen), and I found a few other shops along the way. A few of my favorite shops include:

Old Town Aquarium

This shop was one of the last of the day. The sign alone shows the eccentric, down under nature of this store for aquarium fish. As you walk into naturally lite the entrance way, there’s a round aquarium sticking out of the wall with exotic fish swimming around. Walking into the store itself brings you into a whole different world, the check out area was a large ship on a sea blue floor. Baskets around the front of the shop held a wide variety of tank accessories and decorations. The back of the shop was dimly lit with large 40 gallon or more aquariums stacked two and three high filled with exotic fish, eels, and other creatures. The tank lights glowed adding to the aquarium feeling.

Threadless

(image via scott.norlin on Flickr)

It took all day, a train ride, and walking a mile in the wrong direction but we finally made it to the Threadless store. This was one of the few places that I HAD to get to during this trip, and all of the mix up surely paid off. Threadless is a mainly online T-shirt store, this shop is one of only two actual stores. Walking inside, the feeling of the store was greatly similar to the feeling of the website. The store wasn’t very large in area but there were two floors to help keep the space open. There were hardwood floors and bright white walls with t-shirts displayed on hangers along the walls and neatly folded in wooden shelves. Small LCD TVs were placed on the shelves with rotating images of the shirt design it contained.

Old Town Oil

The Old Town Oil store was a great find among many other great specialty shops. When first stepping in, my eye immediately went to the small, shiny, silver barrels with spouts lined up on a table through the middle of the store and then more along the back of the small store. I then noticed the deep mahogany, wood floors. As soon as I was in, one of the employees came to me and offered assistance, after telling her I’d never been to the store before she explained the point of the barrels and small disposable cups and let me explore and taste to my whim. After tasting a few of their balsamic vinegars, she came back and offered more of her expertise. She asked which vinegar I had liked the most and proceeded to help me find an amazing oil to compliment it, it was superb.

Marbles: The Brain Store

(image via Marbles blog)

This store is a puzzle lover’s dream. As soon as you walk into the shop, there is a floor of marbles. All around the shop are tables with brain teasers, block puzzles, and games for customers to test their intelligence. Room high pine shelves went around the first two walls and were filled with all sorts of puzzles. There were even tools to help you improve your logical thinking skills.

Yogen Fruz

This shop was closing down as we passed but from standing outside, I really enjoyed the feel of the store. It’s a very fun, clean good feeling frozen yogurt store. The colors and playful typography of the store’s logo really helped to push an overall good, light, happy feeling.

Candyality

This was an amazing candy shop, the best and first true candy store I’ve ever been to. Having a bit of a sweet tooth, the name and style of the sign immediately caught my eye. It was all I could dream of in a candy store, there were clear bins of every flavor candy and gummy candy you could think of on one wall, another wall was filled with jelly beans and yet another had shelves lined with various chocolates. The center of the bright white room had short, round, wooden tables filled with containers of prepackaged candy. Walking into the room was like seeing a rainbow of sugary goodness. What’s even better is that you could mix and match any of the candy for only about $10 a pound!