Get to Know Your Villages

“I can’t decide! I want some of everything!”  This was my daughter’s sentiment when faced with the daunting task of deciding where to go for dinner to celebrate her 13th birthday last month. This is a big milestone for our family … we were going out to eat for a birthday dinner. I married into this family tradition of choosing the evening meal on your birthday and we embraced it wholeheartedly long before we had kids.

Those specialty dishes that take ages to prepare, with too many exotic ingredients procured after days of foraging in specialty grocers near and far. This was our signature family celebration. But this year, for this milestone birthday, we were going out. And the angst to choose the right place was overwhelming! Then the lightbulb went on: Why do we have to choose? In the end it was a take-away extravaganza and our dinner table was covered in the fruits of these Villages – an order of creamy Italian pasta, alongside fresh spring rolls (I want to bathe in the peanut satay dipping sauce!) and luscious Indian curry, all washed down with a bubble tea smoothie.

Maybe we were on to something … A few weeks ago the Chamber hosted over 600 people who loved the fact that they didn’t have to choose! Bite Nite offered four hours to graze through fifty local foodie businesses. In our local Villages, with so much to offer, why do you have to choose? Join us in February for our annual Retail Warehouse Sale and partake in an amuse-bouche of the retail variety – peruse through over twenty local retailers – from books to housewares and of course gorgeous clothes –and get a taste of our local businesses.

Oak Park and River Forest – the Villages of Choice. Come out and get to know your Villages in 2019 – there is so much waiting for you!