Request 008 — 1/8/2026

Hey, uh, whatever happened to Chicagwa?

Hi! It’s Thursday — welcome to foiaday — and in Chicago it is raining like cats and dogs and lions and tigers and bears (bear down! 🐻). 

It is day eight, and I’ve requested for eight different kinds of records (more than that, but who’s counting?) and officially got my first real “return” back. Stick around to the end to find out.

As a hint for which request came back first, here’s what we’re requesting today: all records related to the City of Chicago’s very real mayoral hype campaign about its tap water, which it rebranded to “Chicagwa.”

Oh, Chicagwa. 

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Chicagwa was at one point a pet project of former Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, who launched a half-ad campaign, half-actual-canned-water-product that was purely Lake Michigan water.  

Yes — they canned Chicago tap water, put a fun label on it, promoted it all around the city and then gave it away for free.

It was in collaboration with the Chicago Department of Water Management, which oversees the infrastructure getting water from the lake into our homes, and a who’s-who of the local Chicago hospitality, advertising and entertainment scene; according to the website, which is still live, the brand was created by local ad agency Quality Meats, the water was bottled at a brewery in Fulton Market, the voiceover for the videos was local historian Shermann Dilla Thomas, among other local marketing, design and manufacturing support 

The cans were given away at various restaurants — like Manny’s, a deli on the Near West Side — and bars and restaurants had the option to download signs saying that they proudly served Chicagwa, to add an SVG of the Chicagwa logo to their products, and more. 

But just as quickly as Chicagwa flowed into the city, it ebbed away. While the site is still live, I’ve yet to hear a peep about Chicagwa in the time since. 

Was it in part because Mayor Lightfoot and the city launched the brand about seven months after the Chicago Tribune reported on their abysmal attempts to tackle lead service lines throughout the city? Or because current Mayor Brandon Johnson didn’t want to carry the torch (hose?) and continue promoting the Chicagwa brand? Unclear.  

I don’t think I ever actually saw a can of it in real life, in person, and while I have Chicagwa on tap at my home (which has a lead service line, for the record), all the buzz about this hot new bev made me feel a little left out. Now almost four years after the launch of Chicagwa, I’m really, deeply curious about what’s happened in the time since (and more importantly, in the time before launch).

So let’s hunt down some answers, by way of records requests, why don’t we? We’ll start here with the Mayor’s Office:

Copies of the following documents:

- Bids, contracts, memoranda of understanding, project briefs, notes, invoices and mock-ups related to the city of Chicago’s “Chicagwa” campaign in 2022. Please release the documents in .pdf format if possible.

- All electronic communication, including email and text messages, that include the keyword “Chicagwa” in messages to, from, cc’ed or bcc’ed with either Lori Lightfoot or Brandon Johnson’s email addresses or phones. A date range for this request would be between 1/1/2021 and 1/1/2026 across the two email addresses and work phone numbers. If there are more than five hundred emails that are returned based on the query, please release a log of email correspondence, including the to/from/cc/bcc fields, the subject line, date and any attachments, that I can use to narrow my request and ensure that it won’t cause an undue burden on the office.

And let’s request the same (mostly the same) from the Department of Water Management, knowing that it was a cross-city collab:

Copies of the following documents:

- Bids, contracts, memoranda of understanding, project briefs, notes, invoices and mock-ups related to the city of Chicago’s “Chicagwa” campaign in 2022. Please release the documents in .pdf format if possible.

- All electronic communication, including email, that include the keyword “Chicagwa” in messages to, from, cc’ed or bcc’ed with Dr. Andrea Cheng’s email address. A date range for this request would be between 1/1/2021 and 1/1/2026. If there are more than five hundred emails that are returned based on the query, please release a log of email correspondence, including the to/from/cc/bcc fields, the subject line, date and any attachments, that I can use to narrow my request and ensure that it won’t cause an undue burden on the office.

I know I say this every time, but I’m really, really excited about this one. Like, really excited. I’m hoping that it isn’t victim to records retention timelines!

The update you’ve been waiting for! For the request to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office about blocked users on @ChicagoMayor accounts… no responsive records! There are, officially, no blocked users on those accounts. This is what they sent to me:

Request 004 - Blocked social media users

Your request was reviewed by the undersigned in collaboration with the digital team. A search of the Mayor’s Office records was conducted based upon the parameters provided. I must inform you that there are no blocked accounts on any of the Mayor’s Office social media profiles. Therefore, there are responsive records to your request.

This is a good thing! Mayors should not be blocking their constituents from their social media accounts (crazy take), though I did expect some number of ░M░Y░N░ U░D░E░ S░I░ N░B░I░O ░ spam accounts to be blocked or muted, especially on Twitter.

Alright. That’s it from me tonight. I’m hoping future emails won’t go out so late, so I’m sorry to all my non-night-owls!

Catch ya later, happy filing!

Cam