Dimo’s Revival: A Moving Saga

We’re about to hit our 10 month mark after moving into Logan Square (an oft forgotten milestone). It’s our first summer in our new neighborhood, and we are super duper pumped! Summers in Wicker Park were hot; think Wicker Park Fest, Lollapalooza, eating pizza on the curb, 100 degrees-can’t sleep-sun-drunk kind of weather. The season is upon us, we’ve been gaining momentum in Logan Square, and this impending summer feels like a bit of a big deal for us. 

We  opened up our spot in Wicker in 2013, in a building on Damen. It was owned by a trading firm, then sold to an investment management company, then passed along to a real estate investment trust. This in itself wasn’t really a problem, but we feel this kind of arrangement lacks personal understanding. There was no incentive for property managers to consider our individual needs, or even the needs of the neighborhood. Wicker has become overrun by expensive chain businesses, the local places are being priced out, and the neighborhood is losing large parts of the artist identity it had in the 90s. 

And as Wicker Park continued to change, as it continued to reflect the desires of private equity firms, the neighborhood was no longer a sustainable place for us to be. The rent became untenable, locally owned businesses were pushed out, and we needed something more. We wanted to be in a neighborhood where we can retain the customers we had grown relationships with in Wicker, where our employees can live, where we can feel at home in our space. We wanted to work with someone who had an understanding of who we were and what our needs were. So we moved. Into a building in an adjacent neighborhood, into a building owned by someone local, into a building that can attract families and the young nightlife crowds. 

We moved as a unit, taking all of our Wicker Park staff with us, just 2 stops down the blue line. We completed the move in a handful of days, deconstructing the tangled web of Wicker Park. It felt like cleaning out a childhood bedroom; we sorted through old books, records, art pieces, digging through the detritus of all our years at Wicker. Then, we boxed it all up and left for Logan.

When we moved last September, it coincided with the end of summer, the beginning of fall. This double transition felt appropriate but difficult. As the weather harshened, and pizza sales began to dip, we focused on learning new pathways, protocols, places to stand, all in this brand new space. 

The day we began setting up in Logan, in the shell of what had been Victory Grill, we felt at a bit of a loss. Physically this new environment was vastly different from what we had grown so accustomed to. We played with the kitchen layout, bumped into each other a lot, and occasionally cursed the fact that we had to move at all. We are creatures of habit, and no matter how many times we grumbled about some oddity at Wicker Park, it was the devil we knew, and the devil we loved. 

If you’ve been to the new Logan spot, you may notice a stark contrast between this place and the Wicker Park aesthetic. Wicker had become so lived in, and so layered, that you stopped seeing the individual graffiti tags, collaged art, sound equipment, pizza grease. It all melded into this sense of grungy homey-ness. Logan Square, at least in our first couple months, couldn't shake its semi-corporate, sterile, fluorescent feeling. One customer told us he liked this new look way better… because it reminded him of an Arby’s. In the dark afternoons of this winter, we disappointed many people. Countless Victory Grill patrons mourned their go-to diner, and we mourned the emotional ties we’d had in Wicker Park. The Logan lobby was cold and lacking, we know. But as we’ve adjusted to our new home, and hopefully you’ve adjusted to us as well, we’ve found small ways to build back the hodgepodge collection of things that makes Dimo’s feel true to us. 

The Wicker Park Dimo’s isn’t a place that can ever be replicated, and that’s probably for the best. Logan is a new place for us, and should reflect our neighborhood in a similar way. Wicker Park felt lived in because it had been. We cannot force a feeling, all we can do is try and enjoy ourselves as much as possible, and this will, with time, be reflected in the ambiance of the Logan Dimo’s. We are still the same people, and each of us, even against our will, have personality that will seep into our Dimo’s.

And as hard as we’ve been trying, up until now we’ve lost out on a lot of our community integration. We put a hold on our open mics, we haven’t resurrected the wooden stage, or replicated any of our late night parties. We’ve been missing the reciprocal interaction with our community that we need in order to revive the worn-in comfort of Wicker Park. We want to feel at home in our new space, and in order to tie our hearts to the neighborhood, we’re bringing back some of what we’ve been missing!

So please, join us in the rebirth that is Dimo’s in Logan:

Mondays are for Karaoke + $1 Old Style and shots

Tuesdays are for Poetry Open Mics + $2.50 Tall Boys

Wednesdays are for Super Smash Bros Tournaments

and you never know what else might be in the works…

And to really kick things off:

Dimo’s Block Party!!!

Saturday June 27th @ 4pm

Come for handmade clothing and jewelry, curated vintage, tooth gems

and an insane DJ lineup: TRAXMAN, DARU, DJ MATRIARCH, & YANNA LYNETTE

Love,

Dimo's