Market Days is an annual street festival celebrating all-things LGBTQ in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, and it’s the Midwest’s largest street festival with over 300,000 in attendance. The weekend was full of celebrating Pride with a yummy brunch and good friends showing how we #ExpressLove!
This blog post was sponsored by American Express.
Some friends and I started out the Market Days weekend at one of my favorite brunch spots, 25º. With breakfast quesadillas, crafty burgers, and $10 bottles of champagne ($10!), you really can’t go wrong if you’re trying to make brunch a verb. I’ll include some of my favorite Chicago brunch spots in my Chicago City Guide that’ll be coming out shortly ~ so stay tuned!
It’s kind of wild that (a) it’s now legal for all LGBTQ to marry here in the States (b) we’re already a year down! To commemorate one year of marriage equality in the United States, American Express has launched its #ExpressLove campaign. It’s a campaign designed to celebrate and recognize the different ways how we can show and express our love. It’s so empowering to see a company like American Express highlighting and celebrating love with a program like #ExpressLove.
My friends and I made our way up and down the street festival until we arrived at the American Express tent. This year AmEx teamed up with The Infatuation to bring some major #EEEEEATS and hosted some of my favorite vendors and food trucks in the city. From ice cream sandwiches from Black Dog Gelato, lobster rolls from Happy Lobster Truck, grilled cheeses galore from Cheesie’s Pub & Grill and even some dumplings from the Yum Dum Truck!
Even though we had just come from brunch, I couldn’t pass up the cheesy goodness that was at the AmEx tent. I caved and got one of the cheesiest and gooiest grilled cheeses, pictured above, I ordered The Popper: cheddar, cream cheese, fresh jalapeño slices and bacon on sourdough bread. I successfully smuggled the grilled cheese back into a bar where my friends and I devoured it. Fast.
Of course, we couldn’t stay away from the photo booth. Who doesn’t love a good (“well lit”) photo booth?! Maybe I’m only showing a handful of our photos because I’m embarrassed at how many we took.
American Express is hitting the road and will be heading to Provincetown, MA on Aug. 17th and Austin, TX on August 26th to continue celebrating Pride and #ExpressLove across the country. If you’re planning on being in either city, be sure to stop by and say hi!
Stay Risky,
– John
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