A New Tour In Town

There’s a new food tour in town, and it aims to take your tastebuds on a jaunt they’ll remember.

Tastebud Tours began just three months ago and they’re already at #18 on Trip Advisor’s Things To Do list. Founder Lynn Jaynes and his wife Karon researched restaurants and routes for a year and walked countless miles in their effort to create a fun experience for visitors to Chicago. The end result is three hours of eating, and walking, and learning, and eating, and walking and learning, and eating…

I took the tour recently and let me tell you, there is a LOT of food. We began with Pizano’s Pizza (like another tour I know) and had both deep dish and thin crust, and after that stopped in at Sarah’s for a bite of brownie. Then we popped into the Drake for a bathroom break. (Lynn said at the beginning he wanted us to have a five-star experience, and apparently that extended to everything.) Almost as if it were planned, we walked by the Hancock Building just as a free concert was beginning. Then on to Downtown Dogs for a Chicago-style dog, Heaven On Seven for a cup each of gumbo, jambalaya, and shrimp etouffee, and then down to Billy Goat for half a burger. We finally finished up with house made ice cream at The Purple Pig. 

Like I said, a lot of food.

This tour is definitely aimed at the tourist, but I daresay locals would enjoy it, too. As we walked from place to place Lynn regaled us with tales of Chicago lore. While I’ve been on a few tours and am fairly well versed in Chicago’s history, even I learned some things about the Windy City. 

You don’t have to wait for Uncle Jesse to come to town to take one of these tours. You can do it any time, and that’ll make you a Local Tourist!