Windy City Food Will Blow Your Mind

It all started in Discover class when Jason deemed me the kid that is always hungry. Because I am always hungry I took it upon myself to find the restaurants near campus. I decided to make a map of restaurants because for the next four years I know that food from the student center would get old for every student, so why not supply others with a map pointing them in the right direction of whatever food they are craving. The purpose of my map is to inform students where near campus they can get their favorite style of cuisine. Because of students not wanting to travel large distances to obtain food, I kept it to a confined space spanning from Ashland Avenue to Halsted Street east to west and north and south from Belden Avenue to Wrightwood Avenue. The map is centered on the DePaul University Quad because it is at the center of campus allowing it to be a starting point for all students. There are three different hubs for food close by to campus. If you were to go west down Fullerton Avenue, you would run into restaurants of all styles including Burger King and Pizza Hut.

If you travel east down Fullerton Avenue, you would have two choices, you could turn down Lincoln Avenue and run into restaurants like Toppers and McDonalds or you could turn north down Halsted Street you can eat at restaurants like Bacci’s or Noodles in The Pot.

This map can be used by families of students or people visiting the area for another reason that ended up being hungry and don’t know where to eat. The orientation of my map is displayed by the compass rose made from several slices of pizza. I added the campus to the map to give a focal point for a person to get their bearings. The tools I used to mark the map are called emojis. Different emoji represent the different types of cuisine. The seven different emojis on the map are: a taco, an Indian flag, A Thai flag, a burger, a bowl of Chinese food, a cup of coffee, and a slice of pizza. On the map, a taco represents where a Mexican restaurant is. An Indian flag represents a place that serves primarily Indian cuisine. The Thai flag represents a Thai restaurant. A burger emoji represents a restaurant that serves American style food. The Chinese food obviously represents a place that serves Chinese food.

The cup of coffee emoji represents a place that primarily sells coffee like Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. The piece of pizza represents a place that serves Italian food primarily pizza. On my walk, I primarily stuck to heavily trafficked roads because those would be the places with the most restaurants. It just makes sense that a restaurant would be placed in an area where people travel rather than somewhere that people do not frequent. I also wanted to stay within walking distance of campus because I want to make a map for students to use. I stayed off of the streets that only had houses on it because they did not have restaurants. I didn’t mark bars on my map because the purpose of my map was to help students satisfy hunger not their need to participate in illegal activities. My map shows what kind of food is where near campus. My map was an investigative map because I had to investigate where all the different types of restaurants are and what they actually served there. Throughout my walk I realized that Lincoln park has so many restaurants. Coming from Gibson City, where we have a total of seven restaurants, it is truly amazing that we have so many different options for food in this close of a vicinity. Out of the seven restaurants we had in Gibson city three of them were pizza places, so having variety is nice for a change. It started off as kind of a joke, but then I truly started thinking about how many of the restaurants near campus I had been to. Although there is a diverse spread of different food I still somehow fall into a rut of eating at the same places and ordering the same things at those places. Even though there are new restaurants to try I still find myself in my comfort zone and getting a large McDouble meal with a large Dr. Pepper. On this walk this map truly changed directions and made me contemplate a lot deeper than I truly ever thought food would make me think. This project went from mapping restaurants to making this map for myself to truly know what other options there are out there. This map doesn’t map food, it maps change. I know I’m not the only person that is scared to try new things but you truly have to take the next step and try new things now while we are in college or you never will. I want to try new things like that Hakka Bakka place because I have never had Indian food.

I have walked past it so many times but could never bring myself to spend money on something I do not know if I would enjoy it or not. I truly want to step out of my comfort zone. Not only with food, but with life. An example with food though is when I walk into a Starbucks I already know what I am going to get, but what if I did not get my usual. If I do the same things in life and do not change then my life will become an endless rut and I will be miserable for all of eternity. I feel if I do not step out of my comfort zone with the little things then how am I going to make major life changes. This may be a map of food but it truly means so much more. This map represents my life, if I keep going to the same places and not changing my order I will never try anything new. The same is true in life, if I do not try new things and continue with a normal routine I would miss out on so many experiences on life. This map shows me all the food options so it encourages me to go to the different places and leave my comfort zone. Even if I go to the same places I could try different things. In the amount of times I have been to Mcdonalds I have never gotten a McChicken, every time I go to Pizza Hut I get a pepperoni pizza,

my Starbucks order is A grande iced white chocolate mocha with extra whip.

Although I hate to make another food analogy, I do the same thing in life. I do the same thing most weeks have a specific schedule. I obviously have classes that are on a schedule, practice for baseball on Tuesday and Wednesday, games on weekends, and I have executive board meetings for blue crew on Sundays. Most of the unscheduled time I have I am in my room with my friends doing nothing. I need to start having some variety in my life and I’m going to start with my diet. This is the last Mcdonalds I will eat for a while.

I really need to broaden my taste of food and really get a tasted of real food and not just cheap fast food. Enlarging my palette will be the best thing I will do because it shows that I do not need to have a routine and I can do anything and it will give me a starting point to truly change my life for the better. Again, this map may look like it is just places to eat, but to me this map gives me the freedom to truly start living life. A new chapter has started in the book of Bean and it is one of a more adventurous spirit willing to try new things and go new places.