Your outdoor meal at First Slice Pie Café helps provide meals for Chicago’s homeless; Greater Chicago Food Depository needs volunteers to help pack 40,000 family food boxes in 40 days; and City Provisions is hosting a farm dinner field trip.

Last winter, chef Mary Ellen Diaz opened an outpost of her popular Ravenswood restaurant, First Slice Pie Café, in the recently renovated Water Works Visitor Information Center in the historic Pumping Station across from Water Tower Place. Well now, for the summer at least, you can savor homemade pies, pizza made from local, seasonal ingredients, salads and sandwiches al fresco at café-style tables and chairs outside along the Pearson Street side of the Visitor Center.

The reasonably priced food gets Diaz’s three-star gourmet touch, including organic ingredients, and the pies are amazing. Eating there feels good too—a portion of all proceeds from the First Slice Pie Café is donated to the First Slice community kitchen, which provides these same restaurant-quality meals to homeless men, women and children. Continue reading “Chicago small bites: Alfresco dining, help wanted for good cause and farm dinner, on a farm” →