(chicagotribune.com) – Slurred, drunk conversations late at night. The strong scent of spice. Empty wine bottles tossed, clanging, into the alley below a bedroom window.

Those are all nightmarish scenarios imagined around living above a bar or a restaurant.

But many of Chicago’s residential neighborhoods are lined with main arteries where popular eateries are topped with homes. Curtains and dressers decorate the floors above restaurants like Boka in Lincoln Park; a man works on a laptop beyond a window above a bar sign on a stretch of mixed-use buildings on Halsted Street….

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