Oct. 07--The iconic red bull's-eye logo is there, but the new Streeterville Target that opened Wednesday has a distinctly urban Chicago personality beyond the rough wood pillars, brick walls, bags of born-in-Chicago Jay's potato chips and Windy City beer cozies.
Located at 401 E. Illinois St., with its grand opening slated for Sunday, the new Streeterville Target boasts an array of goods celebrating Chicago's appetite for sports and food that we spotted during a first-day visit. T-shirts from designer Todd Snyder's Local Pride brand fit in perfectly: One salutes the Superdawg drive-in; the other reads, "The Sausage King of Chicago," a nod to Mr. Ferris Bueller.
Store manager David Gerber says the location was designed "to create a true Chicago experience."
It is also home to the first "Starbucks Evenings" location in a Target store. Which means that if you need a beer or wine midshopping, you can sip away in the comfortable Starbucks area set up along the store's windowed southern exposure facing Ogden Slip.
After walking past lots of electronics and office items, Halloween party goods, clothing, the pharmacy and more, we headed for the decent-sized market (we're all about food and cooking), which has fresh, frozen, pantry and organic items plus local beers (Goose Island Autumn Ale, Two Brothers, Great Lakes Brewery).
It doesn't have an on-site bakery or butcher, as did the location's previous resident (Fox Obel). But its grab-and-go items (salads, sandwiches, snacks, yogurts, single-serve cereals, etc.) and meal helpers augment the fresh produce, fresh meat (ground beef, small steaks, ground turkey, chicken breasts), frozen food and dairy cases. And there are enough pantry staples, from pasta sauces and cereals, to baking supplies and cake mixes to satisfy many area residents.
Target's branded food products (Archer Farms, Simply Balanced) were developed in the Archer Brands Test Kitchen at Target's Minneapolis headquarters, and they share shelf space with national brands. You can pick up a Sriracha turkey sandwich (turkey, cheddar cheese, Sriracha creme on sundried tomato wheat bread) or cook a little something when you don't have the time to chop, dice and slice. Either way, the Archer Farms team has you covered. Its meal helpers let you grab the fixings for fajitas or a spicy green-bean stir-fry (preppred green beans, zucchini, peppers, onion, carrot and jalapeno), then mix and match as you like with packages of cooked rice or cooked noodles or tortillas.
Yet with all this going on, you've probably never seen a Target this small. It's about 24,000 square feet. But it suits the neighborhood of high-rise dwellers and visitors making a beeline for Navy Pier. It is one of Target's "flexible-format stores," corporate speak for the smaller city locations such as the one on State Street.
Like the store -- and, perhaps, some of the neighborhood dwellings -- kitchen appliances, cookware (including OXO and T-Fal brands), items for entertaining and paper goods are sized for condo and apartment dwellers.
Not far from the Starbucks area of the store is a vast space dedicated to snacks, beer (shelf, cooler) and bottled liquor. To sip on-site, the Starbucks Evenings offer wines by the glass or bottle (Italian prosecco, Washington reds, etc. with calorie counts, thank you), craft beers and a variety of small plates (artichoke and goat cheese flatbread, salumi plates, bacon-wrapped dates, etc.). The Evenings begin at 2 p.m. weekdays and noon weekends.
What the store offers now was based on research, but Target expects to evaluate and update the selection depending on the neighborhood, said Angie Thompson, a Target spokeswoman.
