Neighborhoods: Austin

A few days ago somebody mentioned vacationing in Austin, and I had to think a bit before I realized they were talking about a city in Texas instead of a neighborhood on the edge of Chicago. Although Austin the neighborhood is perfectly nice, it would make for a pretty mundane vacation. Austin is the most populated neighborhood in Chicago, smack dab in between Garfield Park, where I live, and Oak Park, where I work. This means that I travel through Austin pretty often, but don't usually stop and take pictures. Austin is large enough to be its own suburb, but feels like Chicago. I understand this sounds like a very wishy-washy way of determining where Chicago ends and its suburbs begin, but our group drove from Garfield Park into the suburbs and could each figure out the city limits within a couple blocks of the switch. Garfield Park and Austin are both mostly African American neighborhoods with relatively low median household incomes, whereas the surrounding suburbs are mostly white and affluent. Austin is also the only major neighborhood in Chicago which is served by Sarah's Inn, which means I'll probably spend more time there in the future.
A few weeks ago we went to MacArthur's restaurant for our community day. MacArthur's is a soul food restaurant, the sort of place where the only menu hangs over the counter and the woman scooping your food onto a plate will give you an eyebrow if you don't order enough (she silently challenged me to get a large dessert, which is how I ended up with leftovers). The food is fantastic, and the place is usually packed. I admit this is not the best picture, but a picture of my plate would have been just me taunting the people reading this who can't get to Austin, which seems rude.