The heart of Lincoln Square is a one-block line of shops on Lincoln Avenue between Lawrence and Leland Avenues. The heavy traffic has been diverted around the street onto Western Avenue, creating a shopping zone that's similar to those in Europe. Here one can find an old-style apothecary, delis, shops and cafés that cater to life's little pleasures: a loaf of fresh-baked bread, a bottle of good beer, a Turkish coffee. Outside the mall, at the corner of Western and Lawrence, a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln presides over one of the most unattractive and treacherous intersections in the city.

The area is at the center of what remains of Chicago's German community, which once populated nearly the entire length of Lincoln Avenue. The facades of many buildings further south on Lincoln still bear the names of the families that constructed them in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In recent years, Greek, Serbian, and Bosnian businesses have added to the European flavor, and Mexican and Korean shops and restaurants provide an air of internationality. Every year in early September, the German influence becomes very prominent as huge tents are erected on Lincoln and Leland avenues for the annual German-American Fest: three days of beer, bratwurst, and oom-pah bands.