Ah yeah, Red Door. Been there a few times as well. One of my buds ran the Steak Diane cart.

The Red Door!

That's what I was thinking of. We went there for prom.

I've been to the 101 Club with my parents a few times but it was The Red Door. I was a pretty picky eater as a kid. All those places were lost on me.

I just wanted to go somewhere that had good family-style fried chicken and ravioli (which I learned years later as an adult when I got away from the Illinois Valley was actually tortellini). I still call tortellini ravioli.

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You know me like that.

I also enjoyed Chili's as a youth. The tenders were huge and they had great curly fries. Then one day I ordered my usual and the tenders were skinny and the fries were normal. I asked the server what happened and she said there was an article is some magazine like Vogue or something that said Chili's was the unhealthiest place to eat so they changed them. I rarely picked Chili's after that.

As do it!

But do you call it raviola?

That, I was able to get out of my brain.

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You know me like that.

I still call them ravs. But I do know everywhere else in the world, they are tortellini. Ravs, everywhere else, are essentially pillows.

I think I got that out of my brain in my early 20s.

my man

a pinnacle fan here as well for sunday brunch

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I went to the original grunt's two weeks ago. Still a good place but they are charging almost 17 bucks for a burger and still trying to throw down a hippie vibe. Fuck that noise.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Brady's Steakhouse later became Myron & Phil's. We lived almost across the street and it was a place my parents would take us for a nice dinner. I remember one time my sister and I must have been about 4 and 6 years old respectively and we got into a huge and embarrassing (for my parents) fight in the restaurant. We left without eating and it was a long time before we went out anywhere nice to eat again.

On the place where the restaurant used to be there is now a mosque although the sign calls it a "Sacred Learning Center". Probably so as not to offend the local Jews and Catholics. But don't forget your prayer rug. I'm sure it took a real sharp lawyer to get that lot re-zoned from B to RS.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

My wife and I were just talking about this as we walked past Mader's on Friday. Mader's is like the Berghoff. It's venerable and the last man standing. But it couldn't hold a candle to Karl Ratzsch or John Ernst when they were operating.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

handsome and charismatic as well as sharp

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Sally's Stage- singing waitresses on roller skates. A stage show of corny, vaudevillians. No requirement to dress up. Decent BBQ. Now THAT was a place a kid could enjoy.



The Ground Round- they gave you a basket of peanuts and encouraged you to throw the shells on the ground. I won a Christmas stocking filled with toys and goodies that was as big as me.



The Buffalo- old school ice cream parlor

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

John's Garage at Ford City. I wish I was old enough to have a few beers there because it seemed like a great place to hang out. Great fried onion strings (similar to a bloomin onion) and chicken tenders.

My grandma used to take my sister and I to Wag's quite often. Shoutout to our departed IMU who was also a Wag's kid.

Miner-Dunn which I know still exists in Crown Point or somewhere in NWI, but there used to be a location in Oak Lawn about 105th & Cicero. During the cold weather, an almost weekly family outing was 5pm Saturday mass, followed by dinner here.

Edit- if we're talking fancy, then the now defunct Dunlap's in Palos Heights was our go to for Easter dinner or other special occasions. Still the best prime rib I've ever had. The chicken and dumplings were good, but couldn't hold a candle to the prime rib. Old school place that had the relish tray and everything. For some reason, I think Jorr had mentioned eating there once or twice in his heyday.

Good thread. Brought back a lot of good memories.

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A couple more that come to mind:

My uncle, who was a banker, would occasionally invite me downtown to go to lunch at "Club International" at The Drake Hotel. All I remember about it was that when we were seated, the host would bring over a desk plaque/nameplate for the table, apparently to inform all the passersby that my uncle was a member.

One creepy place my dad would take me occasionally was called "Victorian House by Al Morlock." This was an old mansion that was outfitted with various antiques from other old Chicago mansions, some allegedly haunted.

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all those place were my young youth, probably under 10. As I got older, my dad started taking us to grittier chicago places with more ethnic type foods and I absolutely loved the city. I remember him taking me to Al's for the first time and it was an eye opener. I distinctly recall seeing the Chicago magazine article with a photo of a guy in a wife beater with a taylor street girl on his arm while eating a beef. I thought my dad was nuts for putting me in danger at a dive like that (and Taylor Street was a dangerous place back then, even for a white kid). The photo still hangs on the wall.

The same is true for Maxwell Street at Jimmy's. I was walking pretty close to him and I remember some kid around my age trying to hustle us in to a garment shop. He called the place "Jewtown" and my eyes popped at someone using a slur like that (it certainly was not a slur to anyone who lived down there. Jewtown was no different than Chinatown). The current location isn't anything beautiful but the original was a shack.



I loved exploring the city and I'm glad my parents forced things on me.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

my wife was definitely less used to going to dinner as a family. When we went out to dinner for the first time I asked her what was her favorite place and she said Burger King, without any irony.

I now cringe looking at the credit card bill when that simple girl I fell in love with goes out to dinner with her friends. Maybe she was just fooling me back then.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The Firehouse- old firehouse in evanston. firepole in the room that waiters used to slide down. Cool for a kid. There is still a restaurant there and it is still named The Firehouse but it isn't the same

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I don't remember the old one. I don't even remember what was in there prior to the current Firehouse. For the record, I'm not a fan of this Firehouse. In fact, I pretty much find most restaurants in Evanston disappointing. Stained Glass was about the best one and I'm not sure they made it through COVID.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

My parents would go out to dinner pretty much every weekend. After we were seated they would both order martinis and my dad’s rule was you couldn’t look at the menu until the drinks arrived. He said it was a way to make sure we weren’t rushed.

We ate at pretty much every restaurant in the Joliet area (seems like there were a lot of Italian places back then), but the nicer ones I remember were Syl’s in Rockdale, The Rockwell Inn in Morris and Drake’s Farm on Goose Lake. The last 2 are long gone but somehow Syl’s has survived.

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“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

What about Merichka's?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

I seem to remember a restaurant that involved rail cars thst my parents took us too as a youth. There were other places around the tri cities thst we frequented as well that we’re family dining like colonial or Al’s ice cream as well (pretty sure I got burgers). Only bigger chain I remember is Chi-Chi’s and Kenny because I remember getting fried ice cream

We used to hit Charlotte's Pizza in Barrington. The place was always packed, and it was only a trailer style restaurant on the side of Rte 14. When they widened 14, it got moved but never opened again. On a side note, there is a new version called Remembering Charlotte's in Barrington on 14 closer to 59.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Poorboy with garlic butterine!

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yes, as a kid - i knew that same anger/frustration at missing a bear game. i remember counting down the days and hours until the 1979 playoff game with the eagles. just after ditka was getting his ass kicked by joe gibbs and then the 49er blowout during 'bear weather' in the nfc title game - i was ok with missing a game due to work or family function.

by wannie time, it wasn't must see tv for me anymore.

Sizzler and Old Country Buffet. Would make my parents crazy when I would just eat mashed potatoes and Mac and cheese and a roll and not eating the higher priced all you can eat items.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Malibu chicken is the shit

We very rarely went out to eat when I was a kid. We had some neighbors who would go out of town a couple times a year and they would always ask me to feed their cats while they were gone. When they got back they would take us to Old Country Buffet to eat. I would eat until I was going to pop. I thought it was the greatest thing ever.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

didn't covid basically destroy buffets ?

I thought Old country Buffet closed the majority of their locations

The few times i had the bad luck to be inside one, it was depressing as hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6K7VBb8ENw

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I happily ate Sizzler through college but never could Stand Old Country Buffet. First time eating there and got ill. My parents could never understand.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.