John Hughes Memorial Restaurant Crawl

In honor of his passing, does anyone have a good list of all the Chicago-area restaurants used in his films?

I can't think of many restaurants that he actually used in his films. Here are some food related John Hughes sites:

Chez Paul and The Indian Trail Restaurant in Winnetka (featured in Ferris Bueller) are sadly closed. Il Mulino resides in the Chez Paul space. Bring a picnic to the Glencoe Beach, also a location

There is now a Panera Bread where the pharmacy from Home Alone was located in Hubbard Woods.

Sunset Foods in Northbrook was a site in She's Having A Baby.

Good luck

Popcorn at the Music Box, the current ornate refreshment stand was built by the crew on Curly Sue when they shot in the lobby. Unfortunately the fancy restaurant in that movie was a fake-- built in the former Rand McNally store in the Loop.

Have a donut at Dinkel's and walk down to the Brundage building which was the hideout of the kidnappers in Baby's Day Out. I came home one night to find Lincoln full of Swat teams-- who were lounging around, smoking, reading, etc. That's when I realized they were actors. (Fred Thompson, future senator at that point, worked the crowd for practice.)

And it's always amusing to wander around the Boystown-meets-drunk-Cubs-fans stretch around Clark and Roscoe after seeing it play a traditional south side Irish neighborhood in Only the Lonely.

Of course, for a real pilgrimage, you need to get off your plane in Wichita, and then have a pig farmer drive you to Newton (the real Stubbville) to catch Amtrak. And all ex-Leo Burnetters know who William Windom was imitating in the opening scene of that movie.

You could go have a popcorn and pixie stick sandwich at the old Maine North HS (now a HQ for the IL State Police).

Hi,

My house and several of my neighbors. It was briefly seen in the original Home Alone. We received $150 to have fake snow stuff sprayed on our lawn. Their site selection guy came in to use my fax to send materials to the home office. I still have the fax machine.

If I knew that kid walking down the street would have eventually become so famous. I might have taken a picture.

Regards,

The closest I've come to a John Hughes movie was
attending the real Breakfast Club at NTE back in the late '70's
I guess playing cards for $$ was a boo boo at New Trier....

The Indian Trail is GONE?? Jeez. My first grandfather-in-law basically had an endowed chair there; took us every time we visited. IIRC, he even claimed that the Canadian Cheese soup devolved from a recipe he brought back from one of his fishing trips Up North.

Damn.

C2, you'll need to sell that fax machine on eBay when it (finally) dies! Did you get any pix of yourself and the movie cast? It would be great to see them!

Geo

Wasn't Ronnies Steak nearish the Loop / M Fields in Curly Sue? That joint still around?

seebee wrote:Wasn't Ronnies Steak nearish the Loop / M Fields in Curly Sue? That joint still around?

I don't remember Curly Sue all that well (only saw it once when it first came out in video rentals), and Google tells me there are quite a few places called "Ronnie's"...but if you mean [url=ronnyssteakhouse.com]Ronny's Original Steakhouse[/url], it is indeed still around. It's at the corner of Clark & Lake, in the first floor of the Thompson Center (which is why its address says Randolph).

After pulling some crazy long hours on a consulting project many years ago, the project manager told me she wanted to treat me to a nice steak dinner to thank me for my hard work. She took me to Ronny's...I felt like the victim of a bait-and-switch. However, I went back last year but stuck to more diner-like fare and thought it wasn't all that bad.

Ronny's Original Steakhouse
100 W Randolph St
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 346-9487

I forgot that, yes, the same crew that built the Music Box's concession stand also did up Ronnie's much more elaborately than it had been before. No idea if that, or the interior, survives.

Mike G wrote:I forgot that, yes, the same crew that built the Music Box's concession stand also did up Ronnie's much more elaborately than it had been before. No idea if that, or the interior, survives.

The Ronny's steakhouse on Randolph opened a few years ago in the State of Illinois spaceship. Prior to that, it was a Wall Street Deli. Not sure of the vintage of Curly Sue, but I'm thinking it predated this incarnation of Ronny's. (Or maybe you knew that, and I'm not telling you anything new. )

See this thread for posts re Ronny's.

Khaopaat wrote:Ronny's Original Steakhouse
100 W Randolph St

The "real original" Ronny's Steak Palace was at 16 W Randolph, built as Old Heidelberg in the 1930s and now home to Argo Tea. This old thread has more info on Ronny's (both old and new), including a discussion of the meat murals painted for a John Hughes movie.

Geo wrote: Did you get any pix of yourself and the movie cast? It would be great to see them!

Geo

No. The day they filmed on our street was the same day my maternal Grandmother died. We were a bit distracted. I remember standing out in the street for a while. It got a bit cold, so I went up to the third floor and watched them.

Mom2's husband did take pictures, which she recently gave to me. When I find them, I will scan and post.

A few years later, when I was looking to change the color of our house. I looked at every style similar to our Arts and Crafts style house for color ideas. Once I was taking a nap and awoke a bit hazy. The television was running something with a house similar to mine. I was studying the paint color when it occurred to me, this was my house and it was a rerun of Home Alone. Back to the drawing board.

Regards,

C2 wrote:The television was running something with a house similar to mine. I was studying the paint color when it occurred to me, this was my house and it was a rerun of Home Alone.

Oh, that's just hiLARious, Cathy! But tell me, did you like the color of the house on tv?

Geo

aschie30 wrote:The Ronny's steakhouse on Randolph opened a few years ago in the State of Illinois spaceship. Prior to that, it was a Wall Street Deli. Not sure of the vintage of Curly Sue, but I'm thinking it predated this incarnation of Ronny's. (Or maybe you knew that, and I'm not telling you anything new. )

See this thread for posts re Ronny's.

Totally new info to me, actually - Curly Sue predates my move to Chicago (heck, it predates my entrance into high school ), and my subpar steak dinner at Ronny's only took place in 2000. It sounds like the Thompson Center location doesn't hold a candle to the old one, in terms of atmosphere.

Geo wrote:

C2 wrote:The television was running something with a house similar to mine. I was studying the paint color when it occurred to me, this was my house and it was a rerun of Home Alone.

Oh, that's just hiLARious, Cathy! But tell me, did you like the color of the house on tv?

Geo

I was disappointed it was white, just like mine at the time.

Regards,

Hi,

In the Triblocal, Locals remember days on set with director John Hughes

Regards,

Sorry if this further strays off the OP's request for restaurants, but the house where the red Ferrari goes sailing into the ravine in "Ferris Bueller" was featured on a real estate show last weekend. It's on the market for $2.3 million.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... 1109385563

Not technically in his movies, of course, but if your crawl takes you that way, maybe consider Hot Dougs. I think he's the closest we get to Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago.

iblock9 wrote:I can't think of many restaurants that he actually used in his films. Here are some food related John Hughes sites:
Chez Paul and The Indian Trail Restaurant in Winnetka (featured in Ferris Bueller) are sadly closed. Il Mulino resides in the Chez Paul space.

In the movie it was called Chez Quis, pronounced "Shakeys" as in bad pizza.

skess wrote:Not technically in his movies, of course, but if your crawl takes you that way, maybe consider Hot Dougs. I think he's the closest we get to Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago.

I beg to differ. Joe, the Sausage King is Abe Froman. (and I understand he has resurfaced).

A few years ago at the Grand Canyon, I had some very good chili in bar of the El Tovar hotel (the one that Chevy Chase robs in Vacation). Then we went outside and attempted to recreate the quick picture that Chevy Chase takes before rushing everyone back to the family truckster.

I thought about having some memorial sushi for lunch today but it didn't work out. Didn't have any Cap'n crunch either.

RIP John Hughes, you will be missed.

I definitely could be wrong - isn't the pizza place in Ferris Day Off a location of Barnaby's?

The mansion in Baby's Day Out is the McCormick Museum at Cantigny in Wheaton. One could have a memorial bite to eat at the clubhouse at Cantigny Golf.....

This came up in a Barnaby's thread awhile back.

Josephine wrote:
For those of you who remember a pizza parlor from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, this is the place. It's the scene where Ed Mooney, thinking he has caught up with Ferris, mistakenly comes up behind a girl playing a video game and gets drenched. According to a fan website, the interior was actually shot somewhere near L.A., but since this would be the hangout for Ferris' high school, it must be intended to be Barnaby's.

Hi,

Not that this really matters ...

My youngest sister was a junior/senior in high school when Ferris Buehler was out. She was part of a group who ditched school emulating his day off. She did get caught.

We had for years a green parakeet named Ferris. I once inquired about his name to learn it was inspired by the movie.

Having only seen Ferris Buehler once, it didn't quite resonate for me like Risky Business.

Regards,