I have been going to the Chicago HQ store at 801 West North Avenue for years without giving much thought to where anyone goes when they offer to check in the back. I assumed there were shelves. There are shelves, but they account for a rather small part of it.
Kenny Allen Jr., the manager, met me on the plaza and brought me inside. I had asked for a look behind the scenes, and he had set aside most of the morning. I brought my artist, who was already studying the building. The manager asked whether she would need to photograph anything. I said she preferred to draw. He seemed relieved.
Just inside the entrance, on the left, is a rectangular employee elevator. Opposite it is the staff area with security and boys and girls rooms. We began with security, which I expected to involve a few screens and perhaps a conversation about shoplifting.
There was a man in the cell.
I stopped in the doorway. He was sitting on a bench beneath very good lighting, wearing a puffer vest and holding a paper cup. I had somehow assumed that anyone detained by Apple would have done something complicated with an account. This was a common criminal. He had picked a woman's pocket near the station.
According to the security manager, he had taken her phone, walked directly into the store and asked for help transferring everything from it to his own. The woman followed the sound of her Find My alert across the plaza and arrived while he was explaining that he did not know the password because the phone belonged to his aunt.
“She said she was not his aunt,” the security manager told me.
The police were on their way. The man wanted to know whether they would validate his parking. I did not ask where he had parked. My artist made a small note, and we went back to the elevator.
Before we went down, Kenny showed me the elevator’s other doors. I had entered from the store and was facing what I took to be the back wall. It opened into the hidden room behind the lift. The elevator was double-sided. I thought this was wonderful and asked him to do it again. There is something deeply satisfying about walking into a perfectly ordinary elevator and finding that it has a private way out. I made sure my artist understood that both sets of doors needed to be in the drawing.
In Basement 1, the scale of the operation became apparent. Receiving opened onto a proper stockroom, with carts moving between rows of boxed products. Beyond that were parts, tools, building services and a dedicated iPhone battery replacement workshop. I watched a technician work beneath a magnifying lamp. The room was so orderly that I felt mildly embarrassed about the drawer where we keep our charging cables.
Kenny explained how deliveries came up from the train below, were checked in receiving and went into the stockroom before continuing to the sales floor. There were separate people responsible for each stage. A second security desk watched the deliveries, and the building services room housed the pumps, ventilation and electrical equipment for everything above and below us. When someone on the sales floor says a particular color is available, quite a few things have happened before they get to say it.
I asked how much of the building was below us.
“We have two more stops,” he said.
Basement 2 had a lap pool.
Four lanes, proper locker rooms and water a very pleasing shade of blue. A young man was swimming with the serious expression people usually reserve for correcting something on a laptop. The manager said staff used it before shifts and during breaks. I asked about guest access. He said the arrangement was still being reviewed, so I gave him my card.
The rest of Basement 2 was equally well provided for. The staff lounge had a deep sofa and a bookcase, and the community room had chess tables and a Chicago pennant. Beyond them, two doors in succession led to a room marked TOP SECRET. Kenny called the little vestibule between them a mantrap. I asked what was inside. He said that part was not on the tour. My artist drew both doors.
The kitchen was considerably more forthcoming. Three chefs were working among copper pans, ovens and stainless preparation tables. A chef’s table occupied the corner, close enough to see each plate being finished. Kenny had arranged for all the sub-managers to join us there. The table was set with linen napkins, and I was placed between battery replacement and receiving.
Lunch began with a roasted cauliflower soup, followed by halibut with a beurre blanc and little potatoes that had clearly received individual attention. The chef came out to explain the fish. I have had less personal service at restaurants where the reservation was considerably harder to obtain.
The sub-managers were very pleasant. One handled the sales floor, another repairs, another inventory. There were people for facilities, security and the operation farther below. I had not realized how many people were quietly managing my ability to walk in after lunch and leave with a different phone.
Over a pear tart, the receiving sub-manager explained the train.
It looks like an ordinary CTA train. That is intentional. At the lowest level, passengers leave through the doors on the left while merchandise comes off through the doors on the right. The boxes go into a separate loading area and travel by lift to receiving in Basement 1, where they are checked into stock before going upstairs. From the passenger side, there is no particular reason to notice anything.
We went down after coffee, below both basements to the CTA level. The platform, loading bay and dispatch room occupied the fourth level of our tour. A train was already coming in. On one side, people stepped out carrying work bags and looking at their phones. On the other, staff were preparing to unload more phones. The timing was excellent.
I watched a cart leave for the lift and asked whether all of this was primarily to keep Chicago and Greater Lincoln Park supplied with Apple Watches, iPads, iPhones and Macs. The manager said that was the purpose of the Chicago HQ store. I was impressed. There are still places in the neighborhood that cannot reliably have your dry cleaning ready on Thursday.
My artist stayed behind to finish her notes. Her drawings show the whole operation, from the familiar tables at street level to the train beneath them. She asked to omit a wall so readers could see the pool. I agreed. It would have been a shame to lose the pool.
Back upstairs, the manager presented me with a new iPhone. A member of his staff had already brought out several cases so I could choose. I selected one, thanked him and mentioned that the lunch had been exceptionally good.
By the time we reached the plaza, my photographs and contacts were on the new phone. I used it to send Jonathan a picture of the halibut. He asked where I had eaten.
I told him Apple. He thought I meant a restaurant.