The best shops in Irving Park

Part of a small chain of stores in Illinois and Wisconsin, this shop sells everything you need for home brewing and winemaking. Brew & Grow also offers classes for beginning and advanced homebrewers as well as private events.

This nearly 100-year-old urban garden center is a destination for green thumbs and professional landscapers alike. It also offers services for weddings, commercial clients and events.

Operating since 1995, this antique megamall hosts 30 dealers in a 7,000-square-foot space, with everything from jewelry to furniture from a variety of eras offering some of the best browsing in the city.

No bootleg rotgut here: This well-stocked store named for the Prohibition-era gangster and rumrunner promises a selection of more than 600 microbrews plus wine and liquor.

Veteran jewelry makers Ana Pizarro and Diana Ortega opened this bead store in 2014 (there’s now a second location in Edgewater as well). They offer everything you could need to make your own necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings or whatever strikes your fancy; there’s also an array of classes from basic skills to special projects, and you can book parties for kids or adults.

Family-owned for more than six decades, this beloved florist offers full service for occasions from weddings to funerals, and delivers all over the city and to a reported 150 suburbs.

For years, Bill Dugan has run an "occasional" restaurant out of his seafood shop, the Fish Guy. Now he's given the antiseptically clean and bright space a renovation, converting one fish case into a dining bar and adding a few permanent tables in front. Recently, the food has taken a step up, with a lobster roll that does the quality of the product justice and a clam sandwich that has big, meaty fried clams and ramp pesto.