Alicia McNamara Grott

Been taking classes for 20 years. Very expensive for what you get and they don’t seem to care that you are a customer. They do not run it like a business but rather as a ‘club’. They have cliques and play favorites and pick on people they don’t like. They have rules, rules and more rules. It is very constrictive and if you complain you are harassed. There is an owner who ignores everything.

Their paczkis are fantastic ( but expensive $60 a dozen). So this year I decided to try the lamb cake. What a disaster! I ordered on the phone. They don’t offer coconut! On Good Friday, I happened to be at a restaurant that had chopped liver and I decided I’d get some to bring to Easter. They sold it by the pint- no bread. So I had the brilliant idea to call the bakery and have them add a rye bread to my order. Thank Heavens I did because I had told them that I would pick up the cake at 3 and they close at 2. The girl I spoke to changed the time ( 3 was clearly written on my bag!!!) and added a rye bread. NOT! I get there at 11. No organization. No numbers to take. No one running it. I find my cake, that should be refrigerated, is the hot front window! No rye bread. I hear that the man next to me is adding a rye bread to his order, and I mention that mine isn’t in the bag. The woman helping him tells him they are out of rye bread, but they are taking one from another order?!?! I ask about mine. No time to talk to me. I am literally chopped liver. The man points out that it clearly written on my bag. She says, I should have paid for it! Like I would know that?!?! Did the girl say that?!?! Just makes me crazy when someone whose fault it is blames the victim!! He kindly offers me 1/2 his bread, that was stolen from another customer. I refuse. They have another bread that is part rye. She still refuses to help me. Now she is yelling at the staff and is blaming a girl. Girl says, not my writing on the bag. The girl gets me the other bread and a few more things while the woman is still yelling at the staff, who aren’t listening but helping the tons of customers. She then yells to me- thank you for your patience. I yell back- I am not patient- I am furious!! The man tells me to buy the pacznki from the Oak Park Bakery next year.

Really outstanding little place. They have such fun special exhibits. I mean fun! I really hate it when museums make political statements. This is pure enjoyment. We went to the fast food one in the past. Put smiles on our faces. I remember it better than most exhibits I’ve seen at the Art Institute. Today was the lost department stores. The parking lot was packed!!! There was a line to read all the exhibits. And that wasn’t a bad thing. Ladies were taking pictures of each other next to the exhibits. I think we all worked at one of these places growing up. The nostalgia was incredible. And there was Uncle Mistletoe. And even Klaus Dept store from my neighborhood in the city! Very, very well done!!!
And it was free! Naturally, we left a donation! I belong to quite a few of the Chicago area and organizations. PThis one is truly a gem.

Nasty rude manager of the bookshop!!! I bought $42. worth of merchandise and I asked for a bigger bag to put other stuff in and she refused!!! She said they were non for profit. I belong to this organization, just to support them. I just donated $20 for a free bookmark. And she couldn’t give me a bigger bag?!?! And do you think I will ever do anything to support them again?? Penny wise and pound foolish! And the man who originally helped me couldn’t find what I wanted so I had to waste my time and come back. And I’m going to tell everyone that I bought the gifts for how rude she was!!!

Very small and a bit confusing. Not much you can do about the small part. But, the space does not do the subject justice. The gaps outweigh the substance. The areas of the museum were divided into parts of the country. The information was not really clear on the info cards. Some had no info at all. I would have liked to have seen more information explaining the art, the differences in culture, the symbolism rather than who donated it. They really did seem to shy away from anything to do with those issues. They did mention several times that there were commercial items and then real symbolic items ( which were not there). As if the real items were too sacred to be seen by our eyes. The Field Museum embraced that at one of their recent exhibits, which acknowledged the items had a soul of their own. As is typical of museums these days, they had a political statement - theirs was on women stolen for slavery. A worthy subject that needs to be brought to the attention of the public. But, I personally prefer museums limit their preaching to our historical mistakes so we don’t make them again. The gift shop was pretty sad. I had wanted info about the areas the tribes were in. But just a map. Slim pickings, my friend said. I had hoped for sage, but was informed they wouldn’t sell ‘their’ medicines. We had a lively discussion about that. Came away feeling excluded. I had no right to learn about that culture, study my own. Thought that was why I came there….