The T-Shirt Deli puts a new twist on personalising shirts. The concept is pretty simple: your t-shirt design, served hot-off-the-press and wrapped to-go with a side of chips. Awesome!

Owner, Ninel moved to Chicago 13 years ago. After years of copy-writing for beer commercials, she left the advertising industry to start the T-Shirt Deli. She first envisioned the deli when she thought of several funny sayings to put on t-shirts. Rather than simply customising a few of her own shirts, she decided she wanted to help others produce shirts too – “Much like you can customise your sandwich in a New York-style deli.” She says, “After all, not everyone shares my sense of humor, and as it turns out, people absolutely love the opportunity to get creative, and see their own idea turned into a wearable product.”

She searched far and wide for gleaming white deli cases, rolls of perfectly waxed butcher paper, brightly colored stickers, and open-air wicker baskets to display our freshest selection of tees. She also chooses to use “homegrown” American Apparel brand shirts, and started to stock as many font choices and colors as cheeses in a New York deli.

Today, there are two stores in Chicago – one in Bucktown and another in Andersonville, and they just celebrated their seventh anniversary. They take orders on their website, and offer a fun ‘catering’ service. Like any other caterer, they travel to parties, work events, etc., but instead of dishing out spaghetti, they make and serve shirts on-site for the attendees.

Over the years, customers have had many creative ideas to share, though often their designs or text are based on inside jokes, nicknames and other cryptic items only known them and their friends.

It’s always so refreshing to see something done with such a twist! Good job!

Come chat to us if you’d like any custom t-shirt printing done (sadly ours don’t come with chips, but hey – that’s not a bad idea!…) Drop us a line at: sales@iconprinting.com or phone: 0207 183 8431