Gerri Oliver stewarded Chicago’s Palm Tavern, a storied Bronzeville venue rooted in the Jim Crow era, for nearly seventy years until a convergence of…

A 15-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man were critically injured in a shooting in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood early Saturday morning.

A 15-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man were critically injured in a shooting in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood early Saturday morning.

The owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ is piloting chicago.com in five local communities, including Edgewater, Bronzeville and Evanston

Police said the 33-year-old victim was in the park when he was hit by gunfire.

The owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ is piloting chicago.com in five local communities, including Edgewater, Bronzeville and Evanston

The owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ is piloting chicago.com in five local communities, including Edgewater, Bronzeville and Evanston

Two badly injured shooting victims appear to have waited at least eight minutes for someone to call 911 after they were shot in Bronzeville overnight. The shooting happened on a block once covered by ...

Eight years after the fatal shooting of 24-year-old De'Janay Stanton in Bronzeville, a Cook County acquittal leaves a grieving family and Chicago's LGBTQ community demanding systemic reform.

BRONZEVILLE — A South Side ice cream parlor and board game café is looking to bring its business to local events and festivals using its recent $15,000 grand prize winnings in a pitch competition. Father-and-daughter duo Garland and Kamillah Lucas opened Nitro Nostalgia, 4254 S. Cottage Grove Ave., in December 2024. The shop offers a space for visitors to play classic and modern board games while tasting ice cream made from scratch with liquid nitrogen, which can be enjoyed as-is or in a milkshake — with an option to spike the latter with alcohol. “Our dairy, vegan and sorbet bases [are] all made here in-house, while the flash-freezing of the liquid nitrogen gives a smaller ice crystal and makes for a creamier ice cream,” Garland Lucas said. “Of course, we pair that with the board games so people come down and play, and get that bonding time back.” Nitro Nostalgia won the 13th annual South Side Pitch competition last month, joining past winners including Moor’s Brewing, R City Kitchen and Dinobi Detergent. The shop will put its $15,000 prize toward mobile refrigeration equipment that can help bring its ice cream to catering events and festivals. “In 2027, we could get a food truck and start participating in the large festivals [for which] we would need a truck to carry the larger [nitrogen] tanks: Taste of Chicago, Riot Fest, Lollapalooza, [the Chosen Few] house music picnic,” Lucas said. The funds will also help keep employees on the payroll through the slow winter season and support a marketing campaign to increase the shop’s visibility among its immediate neighbors, he said. “We found out a lot of the local community in a 3-mile radius still did not know we were here,” Lucas said. “We do good on Instagram and TikTok, through social media, but we need the local community to know we’re here as well.” Nitro Nostalgia, Bronzeville’s newest dessert destination, opened in early December. Pictured is the Papa Don’t Peach, a confection with peach cobbler, graham crackers, cinnamon and whipped cream. Credit: Jamie Nesbitt Golden / Block Club Chicago Nitro Nostalgia offers signature flavors like Papa Don’t Peach, with peach cobbler and graham crackers; Purple Rain, a lemon lavender sorbet; and Sweetest Taboo, with brown sugar, honey, salted caramel and pecans. The shop also offers a monthly rotating flavor. Customers can take their treats to the board game lounge, featuring classics like Clue and Monopoly alongside newer games like Hip Hop Charades. The shop includes a lending library for kids in partnership with Salem Baptist Church, where kids can read in-store or take books by Black authors home for a while “on the honor system,” Lucas said. Lucas pitched the judges for South Side Pitch, an annual “Shark Tank” style business competition, on its core business, but also on its partnerships with local organizations like Salem Baptist Church, the Hiplet dance studio and the Marillac Social Center. He also highlighted the shop’s transformation of a vacant former liquor store from an “eyesore” into a “family fun place,” he said. “I grew up in the ’70s, when we still had a lot of Black-owned businesses,” the Fenger High School graduate and Bronzeville resident said. “A lot of those businesses faded away in the ’90s and early 2000s, but we’re now seeing a revitalization of Black businesses — and not just any old businesses, but good, quality businesses. “To be part of this moment, it’s pretty great for me right now. There’s a good network of people you can talk to who are willing to share advice and makes sure everyone does well.” Such a community of supporters and fellow Black entrepreneurs has been valuable amid a “challenging” first two years of operation, as Lucas worked to figure out appropriate staffing and supply levels, he said. Traffic to Nitro Nostalgia has also been consistently slow through the colder months, though private rentals and partnerships with locals for chess gatherings, open mics and comedy nights have helped sustain the shop through the winters, Lucas said. Lucas looks to continue growing those partnerships with nearby residents, community groups and creatives, particularly by booking up-and-coming bands of any experience or talent level who are looking to “just come here and start practicing” and performing, he said. “I’m looking forward to keeping this motivation, and that’s what [the South Side Pitch win] has done — made a little fire under me now,” Lucas said. “It’s the right motivation at the right time.” Mamma Jamma Dance, a doula offering prenatal dance instruction, took home the $10,000 second-place prize in this year’s South Side Pitch contest, hosted by the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the UChicago Law School. The company, run by Kemeera Nimahat, also swept three additional prize categories totaling an extra $7,000. Vash Beauty Labs won third place and $6,000, while South Side Sweats — a local fitness group — won fourth place for $3,000 and Ehmage, a social media ads platform, won fifth place and $1,500. ______________________________________________________________________ ## **Support Local News!** **Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, **an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Already subscribe? **Click here to gift a subscription** , or you can **support Block Club with atax-deductible donation.** **Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast:** Need A Halloween Costume? A Chicago Thrifting Expert Shares Her Secrets Episode play icon Need A Halloween Costume? 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The mother of Dejanay Stanton joined Chicago LGBTQ+ advocates Oct. 30 to demand answers and accountability after a jury acquitted the man charged with killing her daughter eight years ago. Stanton, a 24-year-old transgender woman, was killed in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood in October 2018. Tremon Hill, 25, was acquitted Oct. 23 following a three-day trial. The verdict renewed calls by advocates for both accountability and greater protections for Chicago’s Black transgender community.