• March 30th, 2012
• Comments Off on Heritage Bikes – Bridging a Gap

Just eleven blocks south on Southport (and a small turn down Lincoln Ave) a bike shop has sprung up – er… coffee shop. Well, both, really. In the long lines of local coffee shops or the filled up tables of local roasters – a new type of concept has appeared: a bike shop sort of put on it’s head, it’s Heritage General Store.

If you have or are a commuter biker or just a busy biker, you know the pain of trying to get a tune up before work – it’s nearly impossible. But when you elegantly combine something nearly all bikers love like coffee in with a bike shop, well – Heritage seems to have stumbled upon something that makes you wish you had thought of it. The shop crafts beautiful bicycles in the rear part of the shop, both stylish and comfortable – a reoccurring theme at Heritage. Not only do they build spectacular bicycles, but they sell really nice road swag too: from stylish t-shirts, helmets, bells, saddles (seats), and a lot more. Also, in the back, they work on bikes of all sizes and shapes, with flat-rate tune ups while you sip down some tasty beans. The magic all happens in their sun washed long space, where old meets new in design and style. Old reclaimed wood and brightly painted white counter spaces, old can lights dangle above the bar and exposed bulbs hang from a twisted yet chic mess of cords in a bike rim. Everything just works together, from the coffee to the bike stands.

We think the store is the perfect marriage of the two things we love, bikes and coffee. So when they came knocking to stock our goodies in their shop, we couldn’t refuse. Mike has a great eye for excellence and being a Chicago native helped shape his kind heart. There is no ‘big city’ snobbery, just down-to-earth people inside this burgeoning shop. But we don’t just love Heritage because they push our goods, they bring a new kind of enthusiasm that we love to our area; they brought back building bikes in a city that used to make gobs of them, bringing pours of great coffee, fixing our wobbly chain, and allowing us a nice space to get a few minutes of work done all the while.

There may be a bountiful amount of bike shops in Chicago, there may even be an larger and shocking amount of coffee shops, but there is only one Heritage.

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