We, as a society, spend our most important times with our beloved friends over something that can bring everyone together: food and drinks! Along the way, you might just discover something even more extraordinary: your community. The time in your life has come to put your Starbucks days behind you and build a more sophisticated taste for your buck and experience your city limits. Something you have too much access to in a single commodity loses its luster with overexposure. While chains and large companies have their place, your everyday life should have a little more spice and flare. Local area eats and locally based companies are uniquely beautiful and sometimes part of the best memories you will ever make.

Now, I may have lost a few readers that are dedicated to their Starbucks like its a religion, but I want those of you staying along for this ride to hear me out. I'm here to enlighten you on why staying local launches you into a community circle of sorts, where you become a familiar face rather than another Venti order, so to speak.

Being involved in the community can be the most rewarding and simply fun thing you could do for yourself. Especially based in a large city such as Milwaukee, Chicago, etc., connecting with the community at a local event can treat yourself to a new experience that you would have never expected otherwise. Free concerts, local radio stations, local coffee shops and cafes, local bakers and small family owned shops are a becoming an unfortunate thing of the past, but still deserve to be recognized. How else would you know that the best bread comes from the little Italian owned family bakery, or that the best cupcakes come from a small shop lit with chandeliers hidden in the high rise of downtown? And it's not all about the food. Your city is full of local radio stations, novelty shops, popular hang-outs and community supported events. Supporting your city and the hole-in-the-wall stops is rewarding in itself, not to mention incredibly unique and exciting. Losing yourself in the every day fast paced city lifestyle leaves little room for the imagination and treasures hidden within the walls of glass and steel in a big city.

Supporting local grown and locally owned and operated companies can be just as rewarding as the product or services they offer. Watching a company grow and rise from a little shop to a well-known city phenomenon happens more than you think when you stop hitting fast food every time you're hungry and do a little bit of discovery along the way first. Not to mention that you're immediately helping your local economy grow, you're investing in a better community for you and your new found favorite pizza place with the best thin crust in town. So get out there and support your local competitors, you savages.