OyChicago articles

The ‘cheeky’ founders, Jessica Zweig and Erica Bethe Levin

For the CheekyChicago.com founders, it was food at first sight.

Erica Bethe Levin and Jessica Zweig had become fast friends after bonding over their shared love for food. In March, Zweig had dined at a new Chicago restaurant the night before and was gabbing to her friend and co-worker, Levin, all about it the next day on the job at the gym where they worked. In addition to their love for food, they shared other interests too. “We just clicked over being girls and going out in Chicago, trying new restaurants, and having fun,” says Zweig, a lifelong Chicagoan, originally from Highland Park.

Their mutual passion for Chicago hotspots propelled them to spend six hours that same March evening on Zweig’s couch—with a stack of post-it notes and a bottle of bubbly—and flesh out ideas for a new website, which would later morph into CheekyChicago.com.

“We came up with the idea of Cheeky—to be perfectly honest—because we both love to eat,” says Levin. “The idea evolved from restaurant reviews into something much bigger and all encompassing. Cheeky is a one-stop shop for information on restaurants, nightlife, health, fitness, sex, relationships, theater, music, you name it.”

Launched in October, CheekyChicago.com is an online magazine for, by, and about the women of Chicago. The founders—both Jewish 20-something Chicagoans with backgrounds in journalism, theater and public relations—hope the site becomes the ultimate guide for Chicago cosmopolitan women and a way to share the frenetic and “fabulous” city of Chicago.

Levin and Zweig write all the reviews on restaurants, nightlife, and theater themselves. They strive not to slam people in mean-spirited critiques, but focus on the best of Chicago, both newcomer restaurants and entertainment and hidden gems that have been around for years. The founders feel they have something to say because they are regular Chicago women, not professional reviewers. “We’re real people,” says Levin, a Chicago transplant from West Palm Beach, who originally moved here to attend Northwestern University. “We’re not trained in the culinary arts and we didn’t go to school for theater criticism. We’re just two girls who love this city and love to eat and see good shows and drink good wine and we want other women to experience that too.”

While there are many other hip Chicago sites, according to the founders, there’s really no other site reaching out exclusively to this niche demographic in Chicago. “We saw a big void for something like,” says Zweig. “There’s Metromix and Yelp and Daily Candy, and other city-centric resources that sort of touch on female issues and sort of don’t. Some sites are business-focused focused or fashion-focused. Yet, there’s nothing that really covers the gamut for women to enjoy and take something from.”

The homepage—a calendar of Chicago happenings—changes every week, while rotating columnists write features and advice columns on topics including politics, celebrities, wine, relationships, health, and sex. The site also features an open forum that poses daily questions for readers to respond to such as “Where is one city you would like to go live in for three months, purely for fun, and why?” CheekyChicago also offers promotions and discounts for women who navigate the site. Outside of the virtual world, CheekyChicago plans to throw real-world gatherings a couple of times a month, intimate events such as a chef tasting dinner and bigger parties including fashion shows and an upcoming holiday party.

In addition to their love of food and Chicago, Levin and Zweig shared the bond of their Jewish identity right off the bat. They felt an immediate connection, they say, when they met because they were both Jewish. “There was an instant familiarity between us and a sense of “home” because of our mutual heritage,” said Zweig. “I felt like I had known Erica my whole life, because she reminded me of my whole life.”

So what’s so “cheeky” about CheekyChicago? The Levin and Zweig say they’re big fans of the word and it isn’t used often enough. They define “cheeky” on their site as “definitely bold; impudent and saucy.” Who is the cheeky chick? According to the founders, she is “fun, fabulous and fierce…chic, intelligent, and in-the-know…but most of all, she is the kind of woman who embraces, admires, respects, smiles at, and opens her heart to other fabulous chicks.”

In that spirit, the founders hope the site will act not only as a resource for Chicago women, but also will foster positive relationships between women in their real lives. “Women, in general, need to be more open and nicer to each other,” says Zweig. “It’s a weird epidemic in our younger culture that sometimes we can be closed off, judgmental, and threatened. We’re trying to say that—by being “cheeky”—you can be fabulous, intelligent, and have a great job, but, most importantly, it’s about who you are on the inside and being better to each other. That’s what being cheeky is all about.”

CheekyChicago will throw a holiday party at Hub 51 in Chicago from 6-9 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 17. The cost to attend is $45, which will cover food, drinks, and goodies. For details, visit  www.cheekychicago.com .