Local Foods Public Market and Grocer Opens

Local Foods is Chicago’s first wholesale distributor and retailer of strictly local foods from Midwestern farms. The new 18,000 SF W. Willow Street facility in Bucktown includes 12,000 SF of back-of-house dry and cold storage, wholesale distribution, and food processing areas, as well as a market, the Butcher and Larder butcher shop, the Stock Café, and training center open to the public. WA was brought onto the project to provide permitting and construction administration assistance, design-build construction detailing, coordination of equipment, exterior facade and interior design consultation, and millwork design.

View of the public market

The Butcher and Larder

Produce and refrigerated sections

Stock Cafe

Back-of-house refrigerated storage

Back-of-house butcher area

Exterior view of main entrance

HandCut Foods Opens New Commissary Kitchen

HandCut Foods is a local catering company that creates fresh, healthy meals to K-12 schools and private events. Looking to ramp up the scale of their daily production, HandCut Foods contracted WA to design a new cutting-edge commissary kitchen. Located in a re-purposed packing and shipping warehouse off of N. Elston Avenue in Bucktown, the new 5,000 SF space features a custom stainless steel hood over the cooking and baking equipment, a new skylight, mezzanine meeting space, a large walk-in refrigerator and freezer, and dedicated food packaging room.


View of the pastry kitchen





View of the central cooking station with custom stainless steel hood.
 



80-quart mixer. It has a clutch.

 

View of the hood and new skylight from the new mezzanine.