09/19/2026
Our old strip mall at Glen and University was very much loved by its neighborhood. One time in the weeks before Christmas, I was at the shop very late into the night, decorating for the holidays. When a rap rap rap banged on the front door. I froze in place. I hid, then slowly peaked around some shelving and noticed there was a young police officer at the door. He rapped again, this time harder. I walked to the door, slowly opened it and he said…. “Are you supposed to be here?” I was like “Yes, I’m the owner” he said, “well, I just wanted to make sure, the lights are never on in here this late at night. Oh, and this is my wife and my moms favorite store, so if anything happened to it on my watch, I would be in big trouble when I got home”. We both laughed.
For many, many years we loved our home on Glen Avenue. We were gifted a wonderful landlord who also owned the building. Sweet Tommy who was in his 80’s, showed up nearly every single day to his basement office. He did his best to repair many things himself on and around that building. It was not unusual to find him on the roof, or digging something out of some lower level crawl space. You could find him working hard, tinkering, always with a smile on his face. Truly that building was his labor of love.
After his passing, his family, understandably, took an offer and sold his building and land to a company who owned and started a bunch of fancy modern carwashes. The building had been for sale for many years, so it really was not a huge surprise. We were notified by letter, that we would soon have to move.
It was such a very sad day for us. People wrote letters, contacted their alderpersons, wanted to start petitions to save the old little strip mall on the corner. It had held so many nice memories for local Peorian’s. There had been a music store in the basement, a toy store, vacuum cleaner repair guy, beauty salons, dance studios, barbers, a small grocery store and little spot were kids used to bike over for candy. In its day, it was a modern hub for families. People were not thrilled with another car wash opening in the neighborhood or the traffic congestion they thought would happen on that corner. But in the end, nothing worked. The plan was approved by the city.
Lots of people stopped and watched the demolition of their little corner strip mall. One friend actually bravely hopped the fence during the tear down to salvedge a brick for me. Another friend who lived behind our building and his son, hopped the fence and found a little bit of scrap copper from the demo site. They took it home and smelted it down and made me a bunch of beautiful small copper hearts. Both of these beautiful and slightly/maybe illegal loving gestures made me cry.
That corner held lots of love for lots of people.
We got calls about lots of great spaces available around town. We had a few months to look. Realtors reached out, landlords reached out, but nothing seemed quite right. Then one day, I heard from a friend who had owned an adorable vintage clothing store just a mile away. The space she had been renting would be coming up available soon, would I be interested?
I took a field trip over to 3827 N. Sheridan Road, it was not too far away. In its previous life, it originally was the local neighborhood florist. It had a giant wooden art deco cooler for fresh flowers in the middle of the store and many of the old florist supplies were still tucked up in the rafters of the back rooms. The location was nice and it shared a parking lot with a very beloved local nursery who has been selling plants and flowers in that location for more than 85 years.
It was a lovely space, not far from where I lived.
I think we just found our new home.
