A moment of silence for the beef grinder.

I will miss the cheesesteak and spicy fries when I'm hungover

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String 'em up in Debtors Prison Damnit!

For how much they overcharged for their tasty food, there's no excuse taking our tax money, and then not forwarding it on to the state.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2010 ... 710199957/

There's still one in Villa Park.

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yeah, same here. i hadn't been there in years, as when i used to live in elk grove i was around more often and had fond late-adolescent memories of the place... it helped to add to the gut which i am now busting ass to re-re-re-lose. what really amazed me was that for me and my brother to get a slice each and a little bag of fried mushrooms it cost something like $12-15 or something ridiculous... well i think he got a coke too, as i always have water, but still i was like "damn this is pretty pricey... hmmm"

the pizza was alright, solid, you know it was grub pizza... but it was greasy as hell and nothing special. i caked the motherfucker in parmesean after feeling all dainty-yuppieish by using napkins to gob off some of the grease. in fact i even decided to share it with the internets that day...



SO RIP DUDE. you were like a non-superfranchised version of sbarro's that wasn't quite as good as sbarro's, although the sheer volume of different shit you offered on your menu was indeed quite impressive. did they have a good beef?

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Yeah is this for all of the locations or just these two? I used to go to the one off North Ave by the sketchy mall all the time with my Dad when I was a kid.

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That mall is a scary place. I don't know how it is still open after being nearly vacant for almost 2 decades now.

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I remember it being fairly bustling when I was a yute. But I went to the Garabaldis there a few years back and decided to walk around a bit and its like a scene form Dawn of the Dead in there.

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Was it scarier than Santa's Village?

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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!

Very similar in the mind of Elmhurst Steve

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When I was a little kid, I would go to the Garibaldi's in north Arlington Heights (Town & Country Mall) after visiting the video arcade next door. It wasn't very good.

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Neither was the Garibaldi's. I used to really like the movie theatre in that mall though (maybe because I could ride my bike there)

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Oh no, Just For Fun was terrific. There, with my waiting list for Bozo tickets, I mastered the Grand Prize Game for years. What else was in there? Garibaldis? A Waldenbooks? Weird little mall.

There was a freestanding Gap in the outlot, which must've just closed fairly recently. I've never been to another freestanding Gap.

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HOBO is there. I like that place when looking for lower cost materials for a project. There was a Penney's Outlet there for years that closed several years ago. They were going to get an OTB in there too and the locals complained that they didnt want gambling. Oh well Villa Park - enjoy being poor.

They used to have monthly baseball card shows. There was a Service Merchandise and Marshalls as the anchors. I remember it being a big deal when the OCB opened.

Having driven by there a couple of weeks ago, it's not bad now that the mall was demolished.

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The Villa Park mall is somewhat interesting with the market inside (think the Little Village Outlet Mall by the arch). Hobo is always interesting, and the Fruit Market is actually a fairly good grocery. Have only ordered from Garibaldi's once or twice.

Oh yeah, I remember Service Merchandise now. Weird store, wasn't it?

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i remember being a kid there with my parents. it was like you'd order some shit pay for it then go to the back of the store to "pick up" your merchandise, which came out on a conveyor belt. for being like ~5-10 years old, that was like shopping and a show.

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Yeah, and they had the most random crap there.

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I never understood why everything at Service Merchandise was in a case. Do they really think that I'm going to steal a toaster?

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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!

Yeah, it was always really dark and impersonal and weird. Truly the Kraftwerk of second-tier department stores.

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When I was a kid Service Merchandise definately puzzled me. I didn't understand why you had to get a ticket for everything. Plus the lighting at the one we went to in Waukegan the lighting was terrible so it always seemed like you were going to get mugged if you went down the wrong aisle.

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When I was a kid, I remember getting a basketball hoop from an exceedingly creepy Service Merchandise in Mundelein. I'm not sure why we went all the way there when we lived down the street from the Service Merchandise in Arlington Heights, but hey.

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Lake County taxes?

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I'm not that young that I was evading insane Cook County sales taxes as a youth. We were probably on the way home from Hawthorn or something.

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That would also make sense.

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You know, I went to that infamous Chili's like right before it was shut down for a massive salmonella outbreak. Semi-related, I once went to the Ruby Tuesday at Hawthorn with my family but had to excuse ourselves after being seated right next to an especially fetid men's room. Vernon Hills seems to have quite a halting Venn diagram of food and shit.

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I remember Garibaldi's. I worked with the wife of it's manager when I worked right by one of them so we got a nice discount. Haven't been there since.

Service Merchandise was where I had my first job back in the mid 80s. It was as creepy working there as it was to shop there.