An Attempt To Map Ethnic Food Eateries/Bakery In Chicago

Yes, you read that right. I have attempted to map out all the ethnic food eateries in Chicago, which is funny since I don't even live in Chicago anymore. Whatever - I have a big love for the city and food scene and I'll be back living in it soon enough. I love maps - and it shows some very interesting things about the ethnic food scene in Chicago. Also, it's funny to me that some people who aren't familiar with the city think that Chicago doesn't even have that much ethnic food. I hope this map helps to change their minds.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Z_db9 ... sp=sharing

I plan on doing this for other cities in the future and probably moving the data to a different place, with more features. This is merely a Google Map right now.

This was quite an undertaking and took a long time. A big part of it was trying to determine whether these places were probably still open for business. I'm sure there are those that were closed very recently but are still here.

This map has nearly 2200 eateries and bakeries on it right now. I included some grocery stores and markets but only ones that have counter service or obvious fresh bakery. I will be going back later and looking at other markets more in depth and am sure more will be added. I only included those which What to include and what to not include is always up for debate. I did not include restaurants that are majority American Chinese food for example. However, there are some that serve other authentic foods and I'd include them for those reasons. I did not include Italian, British, French, etc places on here either. No poke shops either. No places that you need to buy an airplane ticket to access (i.e. an airport) and no private employer cafeterias. Only places the public can freely walk into or freely make a reservation at.

I learned a lot by doing this - a lot of places online are tagged incorrectly such as an Ecuadorian restaurant that Google tagged as Mexican. Or the mostly Latin American restaurant in Rogers Park that serves some American food, and is tagged as only American on various sites, not Latin American. The many bakeries that serve up Filipino, Guatemalan, etc eats that are merely categorized as "bakery" online.

There is no doubt there are places on here that probably don't deserve to be on here. There are some that might actually be closed and others that aren't on the map that should be. In no way is this meant to be final, but it's just my attempt at mapping it. It will be changing. I am even wrestling with the idea of adding ethnic markets even if they don't have counter service.


Though I would share it with you all. Hope you find it of use. Open to suggestions!

The suburbs say hi.

nsxtasy wrote:The suburbs say hi.

Maybe one day. This was not something that took just a few hours. Trying to find out if these places are probably still open took awhile.

What about places at the two airports (e.g. Tortas Frontera)?

nsxtasy wrote:What about places at the two airports (e.g. Tortas Frontera)?

Thanks for asking - I did not include places in airports or private employer cafeterias. I only included those places which are available for the public to walk into (or make reservations) without having to either (a) be employed at that place (private cafeteria) or (b) buy an airplane ticket to access.

Wow! The massive effort is evident. Thanks for doing this.

Having said that, hope you don't mind me asking this; I'm sincerely curious. Why not include Italian, British, and French? And if they're not included, why not exclude "All" from the title?

Katie wrote:Having said that, hope you don't mind me asking this; I'm sincerely curious. Why not include Italian, British, and French? And if they're not included, why not exclude "All" from the title?

Yeah - actually this is something the person who originally gave me this idea asked too. It's something that I've kind of gone back and forth on the entire time. I think for me originally, it was to try and not add so many of the ones serving up regular Pepperoni pizza type of thing. However, there are many Italian places that serve more regional and/or nuanced food. I will start including those and probably expand it to French. I feel like once we get into these foods, it's hard to know where to draw the line. Places like Osteria Langhe are easy to say they belong on the map though and even Bonci. Places like Lou Malnati's? Nope.

Hey! What about Canada, hospital cafeterias and vending machines?! This list is woefully incomplete.

marothisu wrote:

Katie wrote:Having said that, hope you don't mind me asking this; I'm sincerely curious. Why not include Italian, British, and French? And if they're not included, why not exclude "All" from the title?

Yeah - actually this is something the person who originally gave me this idea asked too. It's something that I've kind of gone back and forth on the entire time. I think for me originally, it was to try and not add so many of the ones serving up regular Pepperoni pizza type of thing. However, there are many Italian places that serve more regional and/or nuanced food. I will start including those and probably expand it to French. I feel like once we get into these foods, it's hard to know where to draw the line. Places like Osteria Langhe are easy to say they belong on the map though and even Bonci. Places like Lou Malnati's? Nope.

I might have to agree with Katie.

Rather than title it “All Ethnic” it might be clearer to list only the ones included. It sounds like many ethnicities are excluded (Italian, British, and French for a start as noted).

Maybe have a separate list for each ethnicity?

This is a daunting task! I am kept busy with keeping track of openings and closings of restaurants in the Oak Park area.

This is fantastic! Kudos for taking on this task. I know I'll get good use out of it. I enjoy doing this stuff and hopefully it was a labor of love.

Some of these nitpicky things are just hilarious...

WhyBeeSea wrote:This is fantastic! Kudos for taking on this task.

Agree 100%!

WhyBeeSea wrote:Some of these nitpicky things are just hilarious...

Agree 200%

Marothisu, count me a fan!

To avoid an even more ungainly list, I suggest adding "non western european" to the title. I think this corresponds well to what most people picture when you say "ethnic".
Otherwise, look at this:
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-ethnic-groups-and-nationalities-in-the-united-states.html

It doesn't seem to me that it would be that difficult to me to draw a line between foods representing non-US ethnicities (including British, French, and Italian, along with many others) and, say, conventional US pizza styles. I doubt anyone here would have difficulty understanding that Malnati's and other pizza chains don't need to go on a map of Chicago's ethnic food restaurants. Some might say the same of conventional American-style Chinese and Mexican food, but I'd agree with anyone who said it's harder to know where to draw the lines there. But a truly British, French, or Italian restaurant not qualifying as serving ethnic food while a Polish, Bosnian, or Lebanese restaurant does? Where exactly in central Europe are we drawing the line? And actually, there isn't a line drawn. It isn't true that French and Italian restaurants are excluded; perusing the map, I found examples of both.

I say all this not to criticize all the well-intentioned effort involved. I say it because I think a discussion of what constitutes "ethnic" could be interesting (in something like the same way that a previous discussion of ours concerning what constitutes "authentic" was interesting), without being a criticism of the the map and its creator's efforts.

Katie wrote:I say all this not to criticize all the well-intentioned effort involved. I say it because I think a discussion of what constitutes "ethnic" could be interesting

Then start a discussion in a new thread and stop leaving little gerbil pellets all over marothisu's wonderful efforts.

G Wiv wrote:

Katie wrote:I say all this not to criticize all the well-intentioned effort involved. I say it because I think a discussion of what constitutes "ethnic" could be interesting

Then start a discussion in a new thread and stop leaving little gerbil pellets all over marothisu's wonderful efforts.

Agreed. While possibly well intentioned, the repeated suggestions, nitpicks and 'better' ideas are doing nothing but detracting from an absolutely glorious and Herculean effort by marothisu.

=R=
for LTH

Panther in the Den wrote:I might have to agree with Katie.

incredible work from the OP

and lol @ the complaints...fragile

This is a fantastic piece of research work. Thank you!

Thank you for your efforts, this was clearly a lot of work and I appreciate it. As you have seen (though I suspect you already knew) no good deed in this world goes unpunished.

This is amazing, thanks Marothisu!

Thanks to everyone for your support, suggestions, etc. Truly appreciated. It's a labor of love, don't worry - even though it's taken me a long time to put this list together.

I have added a bunch of French places to the map though I suspect I have some more French bakeries to find. I also added some German, Irish, and British places. No, I didn't add just any place that had "Irish" on the name. A place having shepherd's pie on the menu but everything else on the menu is nachos and flatbread pizza wouldn't make me add it to the list.

I also added some Italian places, but that's more of a work in progress as there's many Italian or "Italian" places in the city.

The map is now up to 2280 places. What do you think about adding ethnic grocery stores/markets even if they don't have counter service, but sell food from various countries?

Kman wrote:As you have seen (though I suspect you already knew) no good deed in this world goes unpunished.

LOL - I'm in a position of leadership/management for my day job so I'm used to it. No problems.

I am overwhelmed at the thought of even beginning a task like this. Curious on how you are finding these places. Is Google mostly your friend?

lougord99 wrote:I am overwhelmed at the thought of even beginning a task like this. Curious on how you are finding these places. Is Google mostly your friend?

A variety of sources. For starters, the City of Chicago has a database of all the current active business licenses in the city and by type. And then other sources like Google, Yelp, etc. The hardest part, or rather the most time consuming part, is frankly figuring out which places are actually still open.

Just added a bunch of Italian places and a few that do mainly Neopolitan style pizza (and a few that do Roman style pizza).

Enjoy

Awesome map! Thanks for making it. I can already see near my house there are some places I've neglected to try. It will probably be especially useful for people visiting Chicago for the first time.

Thanks,