jnm123 wrote:Thirty years in that spot doesn't mean it was good, though. To my way of thinking, Leona's led the way towards morphing Taylor Street into a bunch of faux-Italian, touristed-up yecch-i-zoid restaurants that no self-respecting local Dago would frequent.

Once upon a time, Bart Vittori's sandwich shop just west of Taylor and May made a masterful combo that rivaled Al's and a pepper-and-egg that almost made me look forward to Lent. Mategrano's, at 1321 W. Taylor, across from the projects, was a glimpse into the area in the 1940's/1950's. Even Florence Scala's place, which was near where the original Tuscany (actually not bad) now sits, was interesting from the standpoint of her history fighting the sprawl of the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus almost 50 years ago. And she made a mean marinara sauce.

And now they're all gone, replaced by Pottersville. Progress, it's a bi-yatch...

Florence was one of my go to spots when I worked at UIC, and it was always full of faculty and others at lunch time. Very ironic that she later made her living by serving the people who worked at the place she fought so hard to stop. Another spot was almost directly behind on Polk St., called IIRC Carm's, that survived on the "back to school special" that they had year round. 2 hotdogs with fries and a soda for $2.00.

Back to Leona's. I always found the quality to vary widely from location to location and from trip to trip, but it had a huge following at one point. When the Leona's up on Sheridan (at first called Leona's Daughters) opened it was packed with a line out the door and was our go to place for out of down guests. The place on Taylor was never my favorite, and then we sort of just stopped going when we found better options for pizza.

I LOVED Florence. And Gennaro's, Vittori, Al's, and Mategrano's. Those restaurants almost made it bearable living around there in the late 70's and early 80's.

{exhales}
If there had been a real world equivalent of Foursquare back in 1969, I would have been the mayor of Al's Italian Beef, even though I was not allowed to order the italian beef.
The daily budget gotten from my mom (Terry), with whom I accompanied her to work every day in the summer of 1969, driven there by my Uncle Willy, was not sufficient to buy an italian beef sandwich. I had to settle for a hot dog w | fries (which was actually a pretty good substitute).
Mom was a typist for Illinois state senator Peter C. Granata, nominally a Republican, but in more probability, keenly influenced by {ahem} organized criminal offender cartels.
I am sure there is an FBI file for my mom. No, I will never file an FOIA request for it.
I have reason to believe there is an FBI file for me also, but I really, really hope it does not have anything more recent than 1974.