International snack stores booming in Chicago

Michael Ciszewski and Susanna Triantafillou stood before a seemingly endless wall of snacks: spicy lobster-flavored Lay’s, truffle-infused Pringles, garlicky shrimp Cheetos. Around the corner, chocolate spoons and matcha KitKats beckoned.

The couple came to Exotic Snacks R Us a few days before a road trip to Colorado to stock up on snacks for the drive. Ciszewski said he was excited to get some of his favorite Polish snacks for Triantafillou to try.

“I wanted to share that with my girlfriend because I’m Polish, but then I also wanted to just try some different ones,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to taste them and try and figure out what they are and where they are from.”

International snack stores have made quite the mark on Chicagoland — and beyond — in 2023, with new stores that give locals the chance to try hundreds of sweet, salty, fizzy, crunchy or creamy tastes from around the globe.

Triantafillou said they learned about the northwest suburban Arlington Heights store through Instagram, so the pair drove over from Norridge.

“We thought it would be cool to try something new, all these fun snacks, and we’re honestly having fun just trying to figure out what everything is,” Triantafillou said. “It’s a whole experience really, and it’s just exciting. It kind of adds a little spice to life when you try something new.”

Online search interest for “international snacks” has doubled over the past two years, and search for “exotic snacks” — which some consider an offensive term because it presumes an Anglocentric view of nonwhite culture — has surged even more. On TikTok and Instagram, videos of shop owners packing up orders of international snacks rack up hundreds of thousands of views.

One such store opened in Lincoln Park in late June and has been reveling in the steady stream of visitors ever since. Exotic Snack Guys is both a retail storefront and an online store shipping international snacks across the United States.

Zohaib Naman, one of the owners, said he and his business partner grew up in the Chicago area and are friends from high school. Last year, they noticed international snacks trending on social media as stores opened in markets like New York and Toronto.

“It seemed like such a good idea. And I told him I walked into a Middle Eastern store — I was born in the Middle East — and I saw this candy that I remembered from when I was a kid and it brought back memories,” Naman said. “It’s a good feeling to bring back those kinds of memories for people, and it’s exciting to learn about different kinds of snacks too.”

Naman said he also enjoys traveling, so being able to visit different countries to research snacks and find suppliers is a dream. Up next on his list is Brazil, which he is particularly excited about.

The store carries snacks from over 30 countries currently via some 30 different suppliers, Naman said, and he hopes to represent 70 to 80 countries by the end of the year.

The shop has a wide assortment of munchies covered, from imaginative chips and drinks to different candy confections and ice cream designed to serve a global range of palates. Some of the store’s bestsellers include a mojito-flavored 7UP and mango-dragon fruit Fanta from France, along with KFC-flavored Ruffles from Canada — which Naman said “tastes like KFC chicken for real” — Magic Masala Lay’s from India, green onion Cheetos from Poland and Tiger Chips from Egypt, which are flavored like kebabs.

The store will also take special orders, Naman said. Customers have come in looking for a particular snack they’ve been wanting to try or enjoy again — paprika and oregano chips from Greece were a recent example. If it’s not in stock, the owners will track it down and order it.

“We keep an ongoing list through the store and online of snacks people want us to have, and it’s a way for us to discover new snacks also,” he said.

The store has been so popular, Naman said, “we basically outgrew ourselves in a month,” and the team is working to transition from in-house processing and packaging to a new storage and distribution center in suburban Bensenville.

Naman is also opening stores in other cities with the help of close friends and family. He said two more locations of Exotic Snack Guys are under construction in Milwaukee and Houston, and stores in Miami and Orlando, Florida, should be in the works in the next couple of months.

In Arlington Heights, Exotic Snacks R Us has a sibling store in Roselle that opened this summer, Exotic Snacks N Anime, said Ali Judah, one of the owners. He and his partners have plans for a third location in Harwood Heights.

Judah said he wanted to get into the international snack business as a way to “bring people together.”

“A lot of people are separated from each other and judging other people’s cultures, so I thought maybe I can bring snacks from all over the world and people can come together and love each other and other countries and cultures,” Judah said.

The snacks are imported directly from some 20 countries of origin, Judah said, with help from suppliers in those countries.

The Arlington Heights shop quickly drew customers after opening in March, said Ana Alvarez, who started working there soon after the launch. The store was “so, so busy,” especially in the first few months, she said. Customers have come from Wisconsin and Indiana for a taste of the international offerings.

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She said snacks from China, Japan, Turkey, Poland and the Middle East are crowd favorites, and the Chinese chip flavors like crab and spicy fish are popular sellers.

Many of the popular snacks are common U.S. brands, but in flavors that “you don’t see here,” Judah said, like steak-flavored Lay’s from Taiwan or chicken-flavored Doritos from Korea.

Judah said he loves seeing “smiles on people’s faces” while they walk around and try new snacks.

“When people see how good snacks from other countries are, they start to change their minds about other people and places,” Judah said. “They start to respect other cultures.”

Exotic Snacks R Us, 1085 E. Golf Road, Arlington Heights; 847-258-5660; exoticsnacksrus.com

Exotic Snack Guys, 2521 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-904-7479, exoticsnackguys.com

sahmad@chicagotribune.com