| Rating |
Date Attended |
Reviewer |
Gender [v] |
Age |
Where From? |
Group Type? |
|
Excellent tour
|
| Sun, Aug 30 11:00 AM |
craiglinn |
Male |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| Thoroughly enjoyed our tour. Our tour guide, Jen was exceptional.
Pluses - Olive oil/vinegar store, jewish deli, tea store and pizza were interesting and delicious. Walking through and learning the history of the neighborhoods was great.
Negatives - stop at caterer should be dropped. cheese was ok, but they had fabulous daily dishes on display that could have been added. Understand the time constraints, but wish there was a way to allow some purchases during the tour. Expectation to reverse trail and stop back by the business (especially for out of town guests) is unrealistic. |
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|
Food and area history, whats not to like
|
| Sun, Aug 30 11:00 AM |
mczet99 |
Male |
50-59 |
Local |
Family Without Children |
| You will want to make sure you have your walking shoes on. This tour was slightly over three hours, and pace, while not hurried, was brisk in moving from location to location. The walk is a little over a mile, and you will be on your feet for most of the three hours.
We are from a town just 80 miles away from Chicago and go a few times a year for shows, dining and sights. We never took a walking tour before, and selected this one based on description and reviews. We wandered from the Gold Coast, through Old Town to Lincoln Park. Our guide, Jen, was knowledgeable, personable, and made sure she gave personal attention everyone in our thirteen person group. The focus of the tour is to visit locally owned and run specialty shops that all have a common denominator in food. You will sample local deli fare, visit a spice shop, taste some of the most amazing olive oils and balsamic vinegars, savor some local chocolate, keep hydrated with iced specialty teas, taste your way through the cheese shop, and then sit down for a marvelous slice of Chicago stuffed pizza.
While you don't eat or drink a ton the samples are generous, are are designed to give you a real taste, while leaving you plenty of room for the next stop. Along the route, you will see and learn about the neighborhoods and their distinctive character and history along with their architectural diversity.
I think I would call this more a neighborhood tour than a food tour. The focus is food overall, but you end up with a very good sample of those things that really make a neighborhood distinctive, the food, the history and the architecture. You feel like you have been given a good enough look to know your way around and will want to come back another time and spend another day exploring on your own. |
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|
Went Back to Almost Every Shop to Make a Purchase!
|
| Tue, Aug 25 11:00 AM |
brianoflee |
Male |
20-29 |
International Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| My wife and I were spending a week in Lake Geneva, and had planned for a day in Chicago which included this tour. We'd rank ourselves as pretty big foodies, and were very intrigued by the description and reviews of this tour. Our tour guide, Arianna, was wonderful - very well-informed, enthusiastic, and full of fun and relevant trivia to fill the walks between stores. The stores were very well chosen, and tastings well-planned and spaced out. Also, the weather was beautiful - so thank you for working that out, too! After the tour, we returned to four of the seven stops to make purchases, taking advantages of the coupons given to us during the tour. We'd recommend this tour to all of our friends, without hesitation, and will definitely check out their other one if we're back in town. Thanks again to Arianna and the rest of Chicago Food Planet for an wonderful experience! |
|
Very good
|
| Sat, Aug 22 1:00 PM |
ChrisParr |
Male |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| The restaurants we visited were interesting and so was the info on the neighborhoods. Our tour guide (a young man) was fun and knowledgeable. My wife uses a wheelchair and could not get into two of the seven places we went to. A little disappointing but the tour guide brought out samples for us to try. Very nice of him. We would recommend the tour. |
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|
Well worth it!
|
| Sat, Aug 22 11:00 AM |
braeghan |
Male |
20-29 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| My wife and I recently returned from a weeklong trip to Chicago. Out of the seemingly hundreds of things we did while on our vacation, this was our favorite. Part food tasting, part cultural experience, and all fun. I highly recommend this "un-touristy" tour of three great Chicago neighborhoods. |
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The Food Planet Tour was great!
|
| Sat, Aug 22 11:00 AM |
jlsmith2 |
Male |
30-39 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family With Children |
| The tour was really nice. We took the Old Town/Lincoln Park tour. It took you off the main streets of Chicago and showed you some of the neighborhoods. We really enjoyed Old Town and all the specialty shops. Jen was a great tour guide. The chocolate was great at the Fudge Pot and the tea was good at the TeaGschwendner. They could have paired up some food with the olive oil and spice shops. We did enjoy the sit down lesson about the spice and cinnamon. It was very educational. |
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Absolutely different
|
| Thu, Aug 20 11:00 AM |
stevegoebel |
Male |
60-69 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| My wife and I have visited Chicago many times in the past 30 years but this was fun and interesting. A small group with a great guide (Jenn) who made the long walk interesting and worth our time. She worked hard to please and accomodate. I never would have stopped in these shops on my own. We went back and bought at 3 of the places we visited on our way back to the start. |
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We Loved the Tour and Jennifer
|
| Wed, Aug 19 11:00 AM |
jreese5 |
Male |
60-69 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Other |
| We didn't know what to expect and hoped that we would find something of interest on this tour. From the moment Jennifer introduced herself, I knew this would be a fun event. We learned so much about Chicago and the foods and stores that we visited. Jennifer was truly outstanding! |
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Fantastic
|
| Tue, Aug 18 11:30 AM |
markscolanto |
Male |
40-49 |
Local |
Family Without Children |
| my wife and i had a wonderful time ,and would recommend to all our friends. Nicki our guide was great. |
|
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Great time had by all!
|
| Sun, Aug 16 12:00 PM |
scottg |
Male |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| We really enjoyed our food tour. Tour guide did a good job. A few suggestions:
Not enough time in oil or spice shop. Pizza was very good, but a long way from the previous stop. We ending going back to three of the shops and used our coupon sheet to make purchases. |
