Chicago's Food and Liquor

For years, I’ve been drawn to the everyday architecture of Chicago, its neighborhoods, its alleys, and its contradictions. Chicago’s Food and Liquor is a visual and written exploration of one of the city’s most recognizable but under-considered icons: the Food and Liquor store. These stores are everywhere and nowhere at once. They are ubiquitous, but rarely seen with intention.

Shot across the city on both film and digital, this collection looks closely at the storefronts that offer more than their glowing signs and neatly stacked windows suggest. These are places of sustenance, survival, and contradiction. They are vital resources in neighborhoods often underserved by traditional grocers, yet burdened with narratives of vice and scarcity. By photographing them as still lifes, as landmarks, as statements, I hope to reframe how we think about where nourishment comes from, and who’s providing it.

I approach this work as a photographer, a writer, a father, a former teacher, and someone who loves Chicago deeply. I’ve spent decades walking and commuting through this city, learning from the people I’ve shared space with. Informed by those relationships, Chicago’s Food and Liquor aims to see these stores not just as symbols, but as complex community assets reflecting the beauty, irony, resilience, and tension of life in this city. Book coming soon.