I order the same thing I always get: the Turtle Sundae with sherbet and vanilla ice cream, caramel and hot fudge, and yeah, I would love whipped cream and peanuts on that.
***
If you look close enough, you can see the remnants of a Chicago that doesn’t exist anymore. There’s pieces of history hiding in the streets you walk on. There’s dates etched into buildings you pass by: 1947, 1921. Margie’s Candies, located at 1960 N. Western Avenue since 1921, is a perfect melange of old Chicago and gentrified Chicago. In the ugly, gentrified version of Chicago, everything looks like concrete and glass. It’s like a knock-off facade, like Bucktown is trying to be downtown but there’s too much neighborhood there. Located on Western and Armitage in the North Side of Chicago, there’s this older concrete building, but in the corner, right along Armitage, there’s a red neon sign on a yellow back that lights up that side of the street. The red and white striped awnings above the windows make it look like it’s out of a kid’s book. Through the windows, people can be seen eating Margie’s iconic ice cream, large scoops loaded with homemade hot fudge and caramel and whipped cream and peanuts. There’s warm light from old glass lamps emanating from within. As you walk by this concrete building, it goes gray, gray, gray, COLOR!
Margie’s Candies is not just an average ice cream shop, as cliché as that sounds. But you’ve probably guessed that already.
***
For us, this is so familiar.
I’m sitting in the booth closest to the door, which means that a gust of warm air whooshes past me every time someone enters the building. We had to wait 40 minutes to get a seat.
Across from me in the booth is my friend from grade school and his girlfriend. This is the first time I’m meeting her, and the first time I’m seeing him in a year. We were on the Western bus, coming back from a bowling alley. He went, “We should get Margie’s” and she went “What’s Margie’s” and we both went “Oh boy.”
For both me and him, Margie’s has always been there. A staple of our childhood, a staple of the neighborhood. It’s something that tells us that all of that isn’t gone, even when we feel like we are. Like we’re gone.
Almost like when a character wakes up from a dream and goes “did all that really happen?” and then there’s Margie’s and it did happen after all. But it’s fuzzy, little snippets of color and light, of stupid dares and grinning faces that were missing a tooth. Can we really remember who we were during those times? Little kids with heavy backpacks, kids who played on the school playground until it started getting dark and then we went home, walked past Margie’s, to houses with orange lights and plates on tables. I bet you five dollars you can’t climb that tree. It all feels so far away.
***
For you, this is all new.
Part of me wonders what you see when you look at him and me, walking along streets we know, pointing out our school and the tree I dared him to climb, both of us instinctively knowing where to go to get to Margie’s. I think you can tell how much this space in time, this day over a random summer, means to us. I want you to experience this like we are. I know you’re not from here, and I want to be friends with you. But this is gonna have to start at Margie’s.
***
When I was younger, my brother and I would beg our parents to buy us rock candy from Margie’s. There’s something quintessentially early 2000’s about rock candy, with the crystallized sugar in popping blues and pinks and yellows. I can imagine my colorful Skechers and striped stockings, my eyes scaling the glass cabinet searching for the exact one I wanted. I would get the pink one, which was maybe a mix between cherry and cotton candy. All I knew was that it tasted pink, and pink was my favorite color (I liked purple too, but who likes grape flavor?). Even though the name Margie’s Candies glows red on the neon sign in the front, the rock candy, terrapins, and truffles aren’t the main attraction at this sweet shop. Sometimes, though, just a rock candy will do.
***
There’s a book I read when I was younger. It was about a house, a little house, one of those farmhouses with the slanted tiled roofs and the cute front windows. And all the world was built up around this house, big skyscrapers and busy people.
Maybe you read that book too?
***
You might automatically think of Chicago as downtown. It’s okay. I know you’re not from here.
The city expands beyond the skyscrapers to two-flats, to houses where the ground was raised so the first floor became the basement, to corner stores and bakeries tucked away under El tracks.
If you want to understand Chicago, and I do want you to understand Chicago, you should think of the neighborhoods. In Bucktown, which was at one point mainly Polish, and is now mainly white and Hispanic, the culture of the people is very much alive. You can tell that people actually live here.
I went to school about a block down from Margie’s. There’s an El station across the street. It’s a pretty busy area. The Sears Tower is in the distance, a reminder of downtown.
I’ve spent my entire life in this neighborhood, walking to the Village Discount Outlet thrift store, getting tacos from a Mexican restaurant, laughing with my grade school friends when we would stand on the corner after school.
Downtown is all sparkling glass and dirty sidewalks and people going to and from. In Bucktown, where Margie’s is located, you get to see more of the people. People are still going to and from, but it’s not like we’re ants swarming a breadcrumb. Instead, you see people walking along the streets to get to school or the train or a comic book shop. You can see the personality of the city etched into the sidewalks and streets and buildings, two to three story buildings that tell stories of their own.
But the neighborhood is changing.
This gray corner building on the busy streets of Armitage and Western is at the crossroads of gentrification. There’s a McDonald’s across the street, on Western, the screen showing smooth transitions of McFlurries and McWhatever-you-call-its. There’s a 5 story building behind Margie’s, and another across the street from that. It’s like they’re baring their teeth, glaring down at all the people who were here before.
And yet across from Margie’s there are two different family-owned Mexican restaurants on the same block. There’s a small hot dog stand too, hidden in the shadow of 5 story buildings. And of course, there’s Margie’s.
In 1921, a Greek immigrant named Peter George Poulos founded Margie’s Candies–at that time Security Sweet Shop– and it was his son, George Poulos, who eventually named the shop after his wife Margie (the eventual owner until ‘95). Later, in 1954 after the death of George, Margie herself took over and dedicated herself to the shop named in her honor. If you listen in on the conversations of the people around you, you might hear stories about Margie making the sundaes herself behind the counter.
You can see people waiting in the plastic chairs outside, posing to take pictures with the giant ice cream sculpture (which, based on my most recent visit, is no longer there), and every few minutes you’ll hear the little bell on the door ring.
Maybe when you go to Margie’s, you’ll feel a little sad. Because when you’re there, even if it becomes just a fleeting memory for you, you’ve become part of the story.
Can you see the rock candy crystals falling, slow motion like those dramatic music videos? Pinks and yellows and blues that turn from concrete and sidewalk and gray buildings to red and white striped awnings and yellow neon signs that ask the question: We’ve been here for 101 years, will we be here for 101 more?
…
You probably didn’t notice the rock candy when you walked in. There’s quite a lot to look at anyways, and really you’ve experienced Margie’s before you’ve even walked in.
Even in summer, there’s that Christmastime feel when you’re staring in through the windows with wonder. That feeling of excitement, of unfiltered joy, the red and green lights in your eyes. You can see people behind the counter scooping up ice cream, placing it in the conch shell bowls, pouring hot fudge into silver saucers. It would feel like December 24th if it wasn’t 80 degrees out.
The minute you pull open that heavy door by its metal handle and walk in, the scent of sugar washes over you. But it doesn’t smell artificial. You know when you walk into the dentist office, and that smell of toothpaste and fear hits you? This is the opposite of that. It smells like sugar cones and hot fudge, which is homemade in location. It smells warm and comforting. It smells like remembrance, a million snapshots of your life, click, click, click, like an old disposable camera. Even if you’ve never been there before. It’s like that scene in the movie Ratatouille where the food critic is whooshed back to his childhood.
The booths are old vinyl, a cream color that probably came with the original seating. They make a squelch-y sound when you sit down, which probably isn’t a great marketing maneuver for an ice cream shop, but not too many people notice it. You can see people squeezing into the small booths in the corner, the mirrors on the wall reflecting the stuffed animals and Beatles memorabilia assembled in the middle of the cramped space, reminiscent of the band’s visit to the ice cream shop in 1965 after their infamous concert at Comiskey Park, the stadium where the Chicago White Sox used to play their baseball games. It’s nice to know that even legends appreciated a good Margie’s ice cream.
There’s also music boxes attached to the sides of the wall. They don’t work anymore, but it takes one person on each side to flip the music selections inside the box.
The menu is a giant laminated cream colored paper with light red cursive writing. It makes the same sort of squelch-y plastic and lamination sound that the vinyl seats make. It’s a pretty big menu, but the choice you make will determine how you remember this moment.
***
Our orders have arrived! You look a bit shocked. It’s really amusing.
The ice cream comes in these giant white bowls that look like shells. The sides are wavy, and the whipped cream and peanuts are hanging off of them. The homemade hot fudge comes in a saucer on the side of our trays and there’s a wafer cookie placed on a napkin right next to it. For two scoops of ice cream, it’s extremely generous.
From all the time I’ve spent here growing up, I’ve just conditioned myself to be able to eat all of this. I don’t think you’ll be able to finish yours, but I won’t judge.
***
It must have been 2017 or 2018. I was in a group at school, and the teachers wanted to give us a special treat for completing our service projects. “We’re gonna go to Margie’s,” they said. Everybody knew Margie’s. How could you not know Margie’s? On the last day of school, students from the neighboring schools would flock there, drawn like magnets, marking their freedom from sitting in a classroom for 7 hours a day. There was a little hand-written sign by the counter. It said “Get all As and Bs and get a free scoop of ice cream! Get a C and turn it into an A, get a free junior sundae.” As much as I always wanted to get all As, a part of me really wanted to get a C to get that junior sundae.
That spring day in 2017 or 2018 has frozen itself into my memory. I feel very nostalgic when I think about it, the sun shining down, the school year close to ending, laughing with three people who I thought were my best friends forever. We were sitting in a booth, and my one friend suggested getting The World’s Largest Terrapin: 15 scoops of heaven. We were with our teachers, and the utter disappointment on their faces was completely eclipsed by our absolute glee…we were doing it, we were going to eat these 15 scoops of ice cream, glory and victory to us 7th graders!
We, in fact, did not eat all 15 scoops. It was probably a terrible waste of ice cream now that I think about it. But it was exciting. Weird, but exciting.
***
And now it’s us three, sitting in the booth closest to the door, finishing up our ice cream. We’ve been talking a lot, so our individual ice creams have turned to mush, a weird caramel-y, fudge-y soup. It sounds gross but it’s so delicious. He and I have been reminiscing a bit, but when he gets up to pay, you slide into the booth next to me. We’re looking at pictures on your phone but it feels like now we’re connected, like maybe you are starting to get it, starting to understand why we absolutely had to go to Margie’s.
You are a stranger, really. But you are also anybody and everybody who has the gift of experiencing this for the first time. I want to paint you this picture because whoever you are, I want us to be connected at Margie’s. Will I meet you here again one day, you?
***
I look at the rock candy in the glass case. I haven’t gotten rock candy from here since I was, like, eight. I see The World’s Largest Terrapin on the menu and still feel anxious that a waiter there might recognize me and ban me from coming back. I see the stuffed animals that I always wanted my parents to buy for me, but which I think are now creepy with their big sparkly eyes. The Beatles memorabilia is right next to me in the case, their smiling faces watching me as I eat my Turtle Sundae. I think about the friends I’ve gone there with, the way I’ve grown up and my order has stayed the same. I think about the way that there are big buildings surrounding Margie’s now, but Margie’s, with the striped awning and red neon sign, has stayed the same.
I take a picture of my friend and his girlfriend outside by the giant ice cream cone sculpture near the entrance. We laugh about how we never would have imagined that we would still be hanging out, getting together once a year during the summer. But of course, of any place, we could have imagined that we would meet at Margie’s. They’re going downtown now, and I’m going home. We say our goodbyes, and promise that next year we will see each other again.
They get on the train, and I wave to them as they move towards downtown and out of sight.
***
Did you see your reflection in the window? I could see my reflection, glowing from the light of the neon sign and the streetlights.
When I look at my eyes from the reflection in the side booth, facing backwards, away from the people coming in, I can see myself from age seven, peering through a glass case looking for a rock candy. I can see myself in grade school with my friends and a giant plastic conch shell filled with fifteen scoops of ice cream. I can see myself in high school, different friends, the same order, the same Turtle Sundae. It’s like I never changed or aged, it’s like I’m still in grade school, still looking at the pink rock candy in the glass case.
This is the beginning for you though. Did you look at your eyes in the window? I hope you looked at your reflection, because I want that to be the image of yourself that remains eternal here.
Margie’s freezes all moments in time and then melts them away, like the ice cream covered by the homemade hot fudge in front of me. All the ingredients that have assembled me are here at Margie’s. We don’t have a past or future here. We freeze time, for just a moment. We hold it there. Don’t eat too quickly.
Savor it.
Bella Zamudio is a rising junior at DePaul University, studying French, Psychology, and English Literature. She has presented her writing at the Honors Conference, Spring English Conference, and First Year Writing Showcase at DePaul, as well as at the National Collegiate Honors Council. She enjoys knitting, reading, and experiencing art around the city.