Four Popular Chicago Small Businesses Join Forces in a New Lincoln Square Corner Store

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A hospitality group known for welcoming pubs and bars is opening a corner store in Lincoln Square with the chef favorite Rare Tea Cellar, imaginative Pretty Cool Ice Cream, and mini chain Backlot Coffee – that will also offer treats from further Chicago stalwarts Doughnut Vault, Katherine Anne Confections, and Publican Quality Bread. Piccadilly Market opens at 2559 W. Lawrence Avenue on February 25, with grand opening celebrations planned for the weekend of March 7 to 9.

Located in the same building as The Green Post pub, Piccadilly Market is owned by the same team, which also operates The Bar on Buena in Uptown and The Northman Beer & Cider Garden on the Chicago Riverwalk. Unlike those other businesses, Piccadilly Market is a retail shop that also offers cafe drinks; sandwiches, soups, and salads; and desserts. It has 20 seats available, and on Tuesdays will allow customers to sit in The Green Post with the purchase of something from Piccadilly Market. (The Green Post will no longer have cafe hours during weekday mornings.) But it’s more of a store: think L&M Fine Foods or Foxtrot Market, whose abrupt but mourned closure demonstrated the appeal of this type of establishment.

“We’re just so excited to bring together local producers in what we believe is the evolution of the corner market,” says Bob Zacharias, the general manager of The Green Post and an opening manager of Piccadilly Market. “It’s about bringing these people together that maybe don’t want to open up their own giant store, but they want to be a part of something permanently and not just on a shelf that gets forgotten about.”

Pretty Cool will offer some 20 flavors of frozen bars and popsicles, plus pints, that will also be available through a take-out window as the weather warms up. Exclusive flavors might also eventually show up. Rare Tea has long been a purveyor of specialty ingredients from teas to syrups to spices for the hospitality industry, but its presence on the shelves of Piccadilly Market will be the first time its products are available in a store open to consumers.

“It’s like a Willy Wonka of tea and food ingredients,” says Zacharias.

There will also be cheese and assorted accoutrements in addition to the prepared sandwiches and other deli foods, some of which will utilize Rare Tea ingredients – although the meat pies promised on the windows of Piccadilly Market as it geared up to open aren’t on the menu yet, but might appear eventually. There will be rotating sandwich and soup specials; the prepared food is by Chris Seeler, the executive chef of The Green Post and The Northman.

Wine, beer, and a large selection of cider – befitting the focus of The Northman, which also has its own brand of cider – are also on offer, as are flowers. And then there’s the coffee and tea drinks from Backlot, in its fourth location. (It opened its most recent one less than a mile away on Montrose Avenue last year.)

“We’re really excited,” says Zacharias. “We’re ready to open the doors on Tuesday.”

Piccadilly Market is open Monday - Friday from 7:00 am - 9:00 pm, Saturday from 8:00 am to 9:00 pm, and Sunday from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm.