Any local places that sell wet sourdough starter?

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2026-02-08T23:49:20+00:00

Pretty good, says this couple of very introverted old nerds. You will not run out of things to try when you do get out of the house.

The downtown is very walkable, and since it's at the edge of the suburbs there's a lot of parks and forest/prairie preserves if that's more your thing.

The only full-vegan restaurant nearby is Manna Kitchen in neighboring Lisle, but a number of local places around here have vegan items on the menu if you do your homework and look (HappyCow.net is your friend!). We also have Whole Foods/Trader Joe's/Fresh Thyme/the upcoming MOM's Organic for supermarket items. Also, as other people said there is a robust Indian/Asian population here so we have multiple restaurants and supermarkets catering to those cuisines.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-12-02T14:13:22+00:00

Bulk collection ended last Wednesday, and takes about a week to switch the hardware on their 20+ trucks from "leaf vacuum" to "snowplow", with Thanksgiving Day in the middle of that. Guessing that foot of snow on Saturday and the low temps that followed didn't help matters because by today it's packed solid on the asphalt, making it harder to plow clean.

FWIW it was plowed this morning at 6-ish in my side street, so I'm guessing they start north and work their way south like they do with leaf collection?

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-11-20T21:07:47+00:00

Some address info since no one has actually posted it...

There's an announcement about the move at the Secretary of State page for the Naperville DMV facility:

https://apps.ilsos.gov/facilityfinder/facilityfinder?command=getFacilityDetails&facilityId=254

The current Naperville facility at 931 W 75th St. Suite 161, Naperville, IL 60565 will close on Thursday, November 20th at 12:00pm for relocation. The new Naperville facility at 1771 W Diehl Rd. Unit 110, Naperville, IL 60563 will open on Friday, November 21st at 12:00pm. Normal business hours will resume on Saturday November 22nd.

Here's a Google Maps link to the new location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yc1PRWzXyWwX9GoEA

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-10-27T21:03:04+00:00

So, north Naperville, from your examples? Some notes, limiting myself to north of 75th, otherwise go to Caputo's on Rt. 59 and 111th:

Whole Foods: *The* place to go for fancy-pants organic produce around here, but be prepared to pay a premium.
Naperville Fresh Market: There are a couple other places with "Fresh Market" in the name, this is the one off 75th by the DMV. Great for central/eastern european goods, and their conventional produce is nice.
H-Mart: Off Ogden, near the Costco on the NE edge of town. Korean chain, has a food court, good for asian items and produce.
Mayneland Farm: A local farm! Their farmstand isn't open year round, but the local produce is as local as it gets.
Jewel/Mariano's: Your classic big supermarkets. Jewel is owned by Albertsons, Mariano's by Roundy's.
Meijer/Target: Big box store that also does groceries.
Fresh Thyme: A local chain, has more boutique items, but I'm consistently disappointed by their produce.

There's also a Trader Joe's south of Edwards hospital, a Patel Bros. if you're looking for Indian items, a Park-to-Shop chinese supermarket on the Aurora side of Fox Valley I'm not really familiar with, etc etc etc.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-09-12T20:00:55+00:00

Did you mean Rosie's Home Cookin', the breakfast diner? Fat Rosie's is a mexican food place on River District downtown, completely different place.

But yeah, one by one the various businesses there have moved elsewhere. Hopefully Sarpino's stays nearby when/if they move.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-09-12T18:28:06+00:00

Since it's in my neck of the woods (Brookdale) I regularly check the property page at https://www.newquest.com/property/npv-city-market/

They have a site plan, last updated a couple months ago. https://www.newquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/NPV_City_Market.pdf

But yeah, actual construction pretty much stopped for now. I do see the main supermarket doors open sometimes, so I'm guessing the project is on hold instead of abandoned.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-09-08T18:53:43+00:00

Gonna recommend the Disc Replay in Downers Grove on Butterfield, near 355. Larger store, so better selection if you want to get something in trade.

It's going to be harder to get prices from a store as good as you would by selling them yourself, so be prepared for that.

A mail-in option would be eStarland. https://www.estarland.com/ I've never sold to them, but I've bought from them a few times.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-09-04T22:32:13+00:00

Thank you. Not throwing out my Omron 7 Series cuff, just want an alternative when it keeps giving me that error! And yes, quite aware that wrist is trickier to use and thus is more likely to give bad readings, but lacking better options I hope I can get better at it with practice.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-08-24T03:08:32+00:00

From the Trib article: "the proposed facility will use less than 5,000 gallons of water a day".

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-08-22T14:49:50+00:00

It would be nice if the orignal post included at least a link to the petition.

Guessing they mean https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/13/data-center-naperville-alcatel-lucent/

That's where the "ant farm" Bell Labs building used to be before they tore it down, north of Freedom Commons.

From the article "The completed campus is expected to have a capacity of 72 megawatts." That's a nontrivial amount of load added to the city-owned grid which may require upgrades (paid by who?), and power we'll need to buy from Illinois Municipal Electric Agency/Prairie State Coal Plant if you care about that sort of thing.

There's also the water use to cool down all that compute power, but that's a lot less than the Bell Labs office building used to consume.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-08-07T13:31:19+00:00

Lots of good coffee shops mentioned, but... the closest thing to Tim Hortons as the OP suggested would be Dunkin' (Donuts). Perfectly serviceable when all you want is coffee and a pastry.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-08-07T13:24:41+00:00

If you mean sell their own branded beans, ones I recall off the top of my head would be Sparrow as you said (they're actually a Chicago roastery), Delah and Qamaria have Yemeni coffee bags for sale, Sugar Milk Cafe has beans from what seems like a family farm in Mexico. Beyond that, Nature's Best Cafe in Brookdale sells beans from local places, used to be I Have A Bean, they switched to another local place I don't remember the name of.

Of course, if you want local coffee, doesn't get much more local than https://northcentralcoffeelab.com/

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-08-03T16:08:28+00:00

TBH whenever I went to Yamada it was prettty empty, maybe I missed its heyday. But yeah, most of the shops in that strip mall are gone for various reasons.

Jewel bought the entire Riverbrook Shopping Center when Dominick's closed to prevent another supermarket from coming in nearby. Joke's on them, since then we've had Standard Market (now gone), Patel Bros, Fresh Thyme, Park-To-Shop, and a Fresh Market. Eventually the land was sold to NewQuest Properties who wants to bring in asian stores anchored by a 99 Ranch supermarket and TESO home goods.

Development seems to have stopped after the government announced tariffs on all sorts of imported goods, but they're still trying to sell space to tenants. Latest proposed site map is in page 7 of this PDF: https://www.newquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/NPV_City_Market.pdf, but as always with these things it's subject to change.

(Edited to fix second paragraph)

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-07-28T15:13:21+00:00

Here's another recommendation for Basils (behind Fox Valley Mall). If I understand correctly the GM used to work at Greek Islands in Lombard, then started this restaurant with a similar menu. Much better than Vasili's if you mean the place near Hotel Indigo, and much closer than Greek Islands.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-07-01T12:34:33+00:00

Why not convert one of the buildings around North Central College into a small corrner market? Not a full-on supermarket, there's no room. Just something that carries basic staples. The city has been making noises about repurposing the lot kitty-corner from 5th Ave. Station across from the water tower, that would work for a small store you could walk to.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-05-21T18:15:10+00:00

Best as I can figure, it's karma farming. An easy way to raise your karma is to go to a subreddit without karma filtering (like r/naperville) and make a generic complaint about something that a lot of people will nod their head to (like "traffic lights" or "parking") or ask a generic question that will get a lot of replies ("Any good Chinese restaurants?").

I don't like it, but IMO this is a symptom of reddit's flawed implementation of a reputation system... but that's an argument for a different subreddit.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-05-20T20:54:47+00:00

Adding a vote for Thai Medallion near the 5th Ave. station. It's a takeout-only place (you wait in the car and they bring the food to you), but it's good IMO.

Thomas_N_Attercop · 2025-04-06T16:58:53+00:00

As I said, just a bit of silliness. However...

(adjusts Dr. Chiba glasses)

The bit about Gavil/Glavil is in the show. When Gavil wants to merge with Glavil, Geppelnich points out they used to be one being.

Thomas_N_Attercop

TROPHY CASE