Stopped in for a Big Gulp and this place is set up really well. I love that they have to various…read moreflavors of Slurpee. This is a combo 7-11 and a Citgo gas station. This place also has a bathroom. You will need a key and the nice lady behind the counter was friendly when I asked for the key. I might have missed the memo about the beverage program buy 6 drinks and get the 7th one free. The clerk explained to me that it's now an app only thing. So if you want your free drink use the app and stop putting in your phone number.

We had run out of powdered milk at the office, so I volunteered to get some from the nearest 7-11…read morebut they didn't have any, so I settled for 1/2 and 1/2 at double the price I usually pay. Their computer system was down and thus I had to get money from the ATM which naturally had a fee attached to it. For a convenience store it wasn't terribly convenient and prices were way high - saying that, the manager and his assistant were very apologetic and supper friendly which just goes to prove customer service is still king. Ordinarily I would have left and gone to the nearest Jewel.

Customer service at this place is horrible. They make you wait 5-10 minutes to purchase lottery…read moretickets while they are busy talking to each other and on their phone. Just speak up and tell the customer that they're not selling lottery tickets or they don't want to service the customer. It's rude! Management needs to address this issue.

So I have to admit, I stop here daily on my way to work. I drive from Hoffman to Skokie every…read moremorning and this place is the the perfect place to stop on my commute. There are other gas stations but this one by far has the best selection of foods and beverages by far. The mini mart in this joint is stocked to the hilt they have everything from hats and gloves to cold medicine. They carry just about every drink on the market and have a decent selection of snack foods. As a bonus there is a full on subway attached that servers breakfast. The gas prices seem to be on par if not just a little better than other places along my route. the bathrooms are always clean too, and are for single use only, if you like your privacy. In the end it is just a mini mart/gas station, it just happens to be where I need it when i need it.

Pete's Market in Oak Park, IL, has the best hot food section in all of Oak Park, hands down. It is…read morenot even close when it comes to other stores. When I first got food from Pete's Market in Oak Park, I was quite impressed. The food was delicious. I liked the set up. I saw they had a lot of variety and appealing options for food. The grocery store is clean and well-organized. The staff have been attentive. I definitely got a family vibe from the store. They even have a dining area. When I ate the baklava there for the first time, it brought light to my eyes and joy to my mouth. I have enjoyed their fruit produce a lot as well. My favorite food from the store has been their fruit produce and their hot food section, but they have a lot of other awesome food as well. I have not been eating a lot of sweets, but their baked goods look delicious. Their veggies also look fantastic. I have gotten celery there that I liked a lot. Pete's Market in Oak Park even has foods I have had trouble finding in other stores, e.g., cans of soy milk. The lamb they have in their hot food section is out of this world. I have not even seen lamb in other grocery stores as part of hot foods/prepared foods. Overall, Pete's Market is one of my favorite grocery stores. I have found myself craving their food multiple times. When I am not there, I have thought about and looked forward to when I could go there again, like a special treat. I would definitely recommend the food here to almost anyone.

Pete's always has what I'm looking for and they usually have it in multiple sizes and flavors. I…read moreappreciate that. I love that their salad bar is always fresh and glad that I can pop in for an already prepared meal or just a bowl of soup when I'm short on time to prepare dinner. So glad they're in the neighborhood.

This Whole Foods is in a convenient Park Ridge location but we've never been much of a patron and…read morehave generally found them to be pricier than we like for groceries.  However, I came in on this day to try their Friday promo of 12 raw oysters for $12.  You do need to have an Amazon Prime account to get the deal.  I heard about this deal from a neighbor pal who is a big fan and oyster lover.   I would say it was an ok deal, and I'm going with 3.49 stars, as the oysters are all on the smallish side.  They're regularly priced at $1.99 apiece, and for comparison if you have them say at Shaw's, they go for $4 apiece there fyi.  You can't really enjoy them in their dining space though unless you want to buy lemons and/or cocktail sauce, as none is provided, so we did a carryout which is apparently the most common approach.  Carryout is fine as they are iced and as long as you eat them within 2 hours.  They had 3 types of oysters and they are the typical offerings year round we were told - Atlantic Blue Point, Rappahannock Atlantic, and Atlantic Wellfleet.  I queried a bit with Terry, one of the two seafood staffers on duty, and he told me Blue Points were the most popular and Rappahannocks were the biggest.  I don't know anything about the multitude of oyster varieties, but I do like the idea of getting the biggest for the buck as they all taste pretty much the same to me.  I also noticed they were only about 1/4 to 1/3 the size of the big oysters we get in a Chinatown restaurant(!), duh, but that's an aside.  Anyway we ordered 6 Blue Points and 6 Rappahannocks.  They made for a nice lunch side at home and a nice little foodie treat.  The two varieties tasted very similar but the Rappahannocks might have been a little fishier tasting.  Kyle was the staffer who did the shucking (and Terry said he was the best shucker in all of Park Ridge!), and he indeed did a masterful and excellent job as you couldn't even tell they were shucked as the shells were carefully reassembled so beautifully.  I actually raised my rating by 1/2 star just because of Kyle's fine work ha.  It was all fun, but probably still a one and done on the promo unless I find out they are going to bigger oyster varieties some day!

I don't shop at Whole Foods often but when I visited the thing that really stood out to me was that…read morethey have a single entrance. There is only one place where you can enter this store, and even when I was here around 5pm on a Thursday this created a backup. To add insult to injury the doors are enter or exit only doors (though I can't remember if there's a barrier between them--so maybe you can fudge it). Other than that, standard Whole Foods. They have an Amazon return counter on the side opposite of the entrance (since that's the least convenient place they could have put it for people making returns, I can only assume it was by design and they're hoping that people will do some shopping whilst they're in there). At that end there is a single exit-only door right by the Amazon counter, so you can avoid temptation by leaving there.