Avalon Park

I hate to say it, but there’s not much to say about Avalon Park. We almost didn’t go. Zack was convinced it was a bad neighborhood — but I didn’t think we had enough evidence to assume that. In fact, we didn’t have much evidence of anything — there was very little information to be found on Avalon Park. We figured, in addition to its location on the South Side (close to some notoriously dangerous neighborhoods), the lack of information was proof that Avalon Park was a neighborhood to skip. But I still wasn’t convinced. Hadn’t we been surprised at how nice Ashburn was, right next to the destitute Auburn Gresham? I pressed on, googling “avalon park crime” and the like. All I found were a few articles about how Avalon Park was safer than its reputation would have you believe. But what did this really mean? I clung to the “innocent until proven guilty” idea — if I couldn’t find any information about crime in Avalon Park, it couldn’t be that bad. I was determined to go, but Zack was grumbling.

Then Zack found the neighborhood crime statistics on ChicagoPolice.org, and we discovered Avalon Park is actually less crime-ridden than our own neighborhood, Lakeview, as well as many of the other neighborhoods we’d visited recently. To my surprise, Austin is one of the worst, statistically speaking — so I figured, if we could do Austin, we could do Avalon Park. Zack finally gave in, mumbling something about missing basketball.

We hopped in the car that sunny Sunday afternoon with the GPS leading us to Krispie’s Steak & Lemonade. We’d seen several steak and lemonade joints in Austin, and the combo had piqued our interest. I’d never thought about having steak and lemonade together specifically, but it sounded good. Unfortunately, Krispie’s was closed when we arrived. We couldn’t tell if it was closed forever, just for the winter (as it was more of a stand than a restaurant) or closed just for Sunday. We looked around the scene, searching for another place nearby. There was Uncle Joe’s Jerk Chicken, J&J Fish (a place I’d never heard of before this challenge, but apparently it’s a Chicago staple), Wendy’s, McDonalds and Ray’s Steak ‘n Shake. Lots of chains. Half were closed.

We settled on Ray’s, a place that looked like a chain by all measures, but, as far as I can tell, is actually one-of-a-kind. Pretty standard menu: burgers, chicken fingers, fries, onion rings, Philly steaks, etc. I ordered the Ray’s Charbroiled burger with fries, and Zack got the steak wrap. After quite a long wait in the mostly empty fast food restaurant, we got our food — not bad. Real burger, seasoned fries, greasy wrap. As we ate, some men in blue jumpsuits from the Crystal Glass place next door came in for food to go. That’s about all I can report about our first stop in Avalon Park.

Before heading to the next stop, we drove around the neighborhood — pretty decent place, actually. We drove through the namesake Avalon Park and scoped out the surrounding neighborhood with its nice, humble houses.

Unfortunately, our second stop never happened. I’d done some research and found a vegetarian place on East 87th – Vegetarian Fun Foods Supreme — where we’d planned to get a smoothie before we headed home. I found a website with menus and reviews. It was on Google Maps and in the GPS system. But as the GPS chimed, “Your destination is on the left,” there was nothing on our left. We drove up and down the street a few times, reading store signs out loud (“Teacher Supply Store,” “Classy Lady Clothes & Shoes,” “Black Stars Hair Salon,” “Tubs R Us,” “Pee Wee's Hot Dogs,” etc.) — but no luck.

We decided to call it a day and head home. We tried — but Avalon Park just didn’t have much to offer on a Sunday afternoon. I can’t believe I was able to write so much about it.

On the plus side, we made it back in time for Zack to watch the end of the game.