Illinois is filled with serious dining destinations, but some of its most memorable restaurants refuse to behave seriously. Much like California’s wonderfully weird restaurants, these Illinois favorites turn eating out into an affectionate form of theater.
Servers may insult customers, dance on counters or send dinner across the room on a model train. At one restaurant, the building itself appears to have been drawn with a black marker.
Ed Debevic’s in Chicago
Most restaurants train servers to be unfailingly polite. Ed Debevic’s trains them to deliver hamburgers with sarcasm.
The retro diner is famous for costumed servers who tease customers, adopt exaggerated personalities and occasionally dance on the counters. The mock rudeness is part of the performance, and diners are expected to laugh along rather than ask for the manager.
Ed Debevic’s originally opened in 1984 at 640 N. Wells Street in River North, where it operated for three decades before that building was demolished in 2015. It reopened in 2021 at 159 E. Ohio Street in the Streeterville neighborhood. Its current incarnation preserves the bright 1950s-style decor, choreographed routines and deliberately chaotic atmosphere that made the original famous — and it earned a pop-culture nod when a visit to Ed’s inspired the restaurant-owning dream at the heart of the acclaimed FX series “The Bear.”
Customers leave with a meal, a show and possibly a new nickname they did not request.
The Wiener’s Circle in Chicago
The Wiener’s Circle is another Chicago restaurant where good customer service can involve being loudly insulted.
The late-night hot dog stand on North Clark Street in Lincoln Park, open since 1983, is known for char-grilled food and rapid exchanges of trash talk between employees and customers. The atmosphere becomes particularly lively after the neighborhood’s bars begin emptying.
The verbal sparring is not an accidental failure of hospitality. It is a long-running tradition that customers actively seek out, although newcomers may require a moment to understand the arrangement.
Many restaurants build loyalty by remembering a regular’s name. The Wiener’s Circle may build it by inventing a creative insult before handing over the cheese fries.
2d Restaurant in Chicago
Walking into 2d Restaurant feels like stepping out of the real world and into a hand-drawn comic book.
Black lines cover the white walls, tables, chairs and surrounding objects, creating a two-dimensional optical illusion. Even objects that are physically present can appear sketched onto the room.
The menu emphasizes Korean-style fried chicken, mochi doughnuts and colorful drinks, providing a vivid contrast with the monochrome surroundings. The restaurant regularly adds playful characters and limited-time collaborations without disturbing its central comic-book illusion.
It is the rare restaurant where customers may spend nearly as much time examining the walls as they do looking at the menu.
The Choo Choo in Des Plaines
The Choo Choo has discovered a delivery system considerably more entertaining than asking a server to carry food several feet.
Customers sit at the counter while a model train transports burgers and other orders from the kitchen. The train circles the restaurant before stopping in front of the appropriate diner, turning an ordinary lunch into a small event.
The Des Plaines restaurant dates to 1951 and has become a multigenerational tradition. Adults who watched the train deliver their food as children now return with children or grandchildren of their own.
The approach may not be the most practical restaurant technology ever invented, but practicality has never produced the same expression on a child’s face as a cheeseburger arriving by rail.
Superdawg Drive-In in Chicago
Superdawg is watched over by Maurie and Flaurie, two enormous hot dog figures standing on the restaurant’s roof.
The roughly 12-foot mascots — named for founders Maurie and Flaurie Berman — have been winking and blinking at passing drivers for decades. Maurie wears a leopard-patterned outfit in a caveman pose, while Flaurie is distinguished by a skirt and a blue bow.
The family-owned drive-in at the corner of Milwaukee, Devon and Nagle avenues opened in 1948 and still serves meals to customers in their cars, delivered by carhops. Food arrives in distinctive boxes, preserving an experience that feels increasingly rare in an era of standardized drive-thru windows.
The giant rooftop hot dogs are undeniably strange, but after more than 75 years, removing them would probably feel far stranger.
Illinois restaurants make awkwardness part of the fun
The state’s most endearingly weird restaurants succeed because customers understand the invitation.
At Ed Debevic’s and the Wiener’s Circle, customers agree to become part of the joke. At the Choo Choo, they willingly become excited about a tiny train. At Superdawg, two enormous hot dogs remain cherished neighborhood landmarks.
None of it is necessary, which is exactly why it is fun.
Links on this page may be affiliate links, for which the site earns a small commission, but the price for you is the same
Leave a Comment