Does Anyone Remember This Chicago Restaurant?

I’m searching for a past Chicago restaurant that was located at 222-224 N. Wells St. It was located where Ricobene is currently located. Prior to Ricobene’s was an Asian restaurant I believe called Silk Road. I’m looking for the restaurant before them that was there for many years.

They used to serve popcorn while you were waiting in line.

Can you help?

Thanks.

Jeffrey

It was called "The Surf" or "Surf Restaurant"

Great chocolate donuts and cinnamon rolls!!

More Surf Donut info: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=18111

Hi,

There was Pickle Barrel Restaurant around there who did serve popcorn. Could this be it?

Regards,

I was thinking Pickle Barrel also.

THAT'S IT!

Thank you very much. I also moved away and could not remember.

Now, do you remember a small little italian pizza and sandwich shop just a block or 2 south of the Surf on the east side of wells? You walked up to the counter to order. It had a bar inside but wasn't used.

Wow, absolutely amazing.
how you all remember that baffles me!

Leyla,

When you get a bit older and your memory starts to fade sometimes you only remember things from experience. For me it's food. I can tell you what I ate there but not the name of the restaurant. Strange, I know.

what a blast from the past..great place to grab a sandwich after a day at Tossauds Wax Museum...
and a copy of the Seed on the way:)

Head's Red BBQ wrote:what a blast from the past..great place to grab a sandwich after a day at Tossauds Wax Museum...
and a copy of the Seed on the way:)

HUH?

Willkat98 wrote:It was called "The Surf" or "Surf Restaurant"

Great chocolate donuts and cinnamon rolls!!

More Surf Donut info: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=18111

don't forget the popcorn....

Chef Jeff wrote:

Head's Red BBQ wrote:what a blast from the past..great place to grab a sandwich after a day at Tossauds Wax Museum...
and a copy of the Seed on the way:)

HUH?

there was a Wax Museum on Wells a door or two away from the Pickle Barrel..this was late 60's/early 70's back when Old Town/Wells Street was still somewhat of a "hippie" area..The Seed was an underground newspaper in Chicago that used to get hawked up and down Wells ..thought there enough older folks on here that I wouldnt have to explain it

ah, the Seed, which one read on the way to Bizzare Bazzare.

I however, favored lunch at the Bowl-n-Roll. (just to bring this slightly back on topic)

BTW, there's this thread: All the Old Familiar Places where you can look up many gone-but-not-forgotten favorites

Chef Jeff wrote:Now, do you remember a small little italian pizza and sandwich shop just a block or 2 south of the Surf on the east side of wells? You walked up to the counter to order. It had a bar inside but wasn't used.

Granata's Food and Spirits (Planet 99 is an excellent source for photos of long-gone restaurants) at 165 N Wells?

OMG! That's it. Thank you so much.

Diannie wrote:ah, the Seed, which one read on the way to Bizzare Bazzare.

I however, favored lunch at the Bowl-n-Roll. (just to bring this slightly back on topic)

BTW, there's this thread: All the Old Familiar Places where you can look up many gone-but-not-forgotten favorites

Thank you!!! thought maybe I was having inaccurate flashbacks

I think part of the confusion in this thread is that 222-224 N. Wells St is between Lake and Wacker while Old Town, where the Pickle Barrel was located, was about 1½ miles north on Wells. Pickle Barrel also had a location at Howard and Devon that frequented often. Never actually was at the one in Old Town but I do remember the Wax Museum.

I remember the Pickle Barrel in Old Town, but where's Howard and Devon?

nr706 wrote:I remember the Pickle Barrel in Old Town, but where's Howard and Devon?

Sorry, I meant Howard and Western.

I shouldn't post when I'm sick.

This is going back quite a long time ago but does anyone remember the Aunt Jemima Pancake House? I'm thinking it must have been in the near north suburbs, possibly along Golf or Dempster rds. My parents took us there once in a while and though I loved having pancakes for dinner, I was frightened by Aunt Jemima coming out of the kitchen to make sure we ate all our food. If we did (eat it all) we got a treat. I'm sure it was meant to be enjoyable for the children but she was a big lady and scared us.

I wish my parents were still around to ask.

Also, Henrici's, where I ate my first lobster tail....don't remember where that was either.

Aunt Jemima's Pancake House was on Dempster, located in the building that was most recently occupied by Barnum & Bagel. We used to go there on Sundays when I was a very small child. I have vague memories of the woman who portrayed Aunt Jemima, and of the, what seemed to me at the time, massive plate of silver dollar pancakes. I am told that Aunt Jemima loved me and used to hold me in her arms as we were led to our table. Unlike you I had no such fears of the large woman.

All terribly embarrassing, but frightfully true.

Buddy

P.S. Around that same time, further west on Dempster, the building that would one day house Maxwell's, was a hamburger joint called Lil' Abner's. There was a huge statue of Al Capp's cartoon character standing outside in the parking lot, holding a heaping tray of burgers as I recall.

Judy wrote:Also, Henrici's, where I ate my first lobster tail....don't remember where that was either.

Henrici's was at 71 W. Randolph.


They went on to open a few other locations. I think the last one was off Skokie Blvd. in Northbrook, where there's still a Henrici Drive.

And, Lil' Abner's was a great go-to place for us growing up.

BuddyRoadhouse wrote:Aunt Jemima's Pancake House was on Dempster, located in the building that was most recently occupied by Barnum & Bagel.

Wow, who knew Aunt Jemima was from Skokie? Actually Aunt Jemima's Pancake House began at Disneyland in the 1950s. Aunt Jemima's Kitchen, which opened on Dempster in 1960, was the prototype for a chain of restaurants with an expanded menu of Southern food. The building was designed to resemble a plantation manor house (traces of the columns in front remained at Barnum & Bagel). At one time in the 1960s there were about 30 franchises, including one on Rand Road in Mount Prospect.

Aunt Jemima has deep roots in Chicago. Nancy Green, the former slave hired to portray Aunt Jemima, got her start making pancakes at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.

Also, Henrici's, where I ate my first lobster tail....don't remember where that was either.[/quote]

Speaking of Lobster ... The best lobster I ever remember was at Weller's on Waukegan Rd in Morton Grove.

Anyone remember that one?

Chef Jeff wrote:Speaking of Lobster ... The best lobster I ever remember was at Weller's on Waukegan Rd in Morton Grove.

Anyone remember that one?

I do. Lobster was what they were known for.

William Tell Restaurant when they used to be at North and Central (my Mom's birthday dinner place)
Mr Anthony's Steakhouse on North in Oak Park (Where Edwardo's Pizza is now)

I seem to recall that The Golden Steer Steakhouse used to have a bigger restaurant west of Narragansett on North.
Another Steakhouse between Narragansett and Oak Park Ave...

That strip used to have quite the reputation for Steakhouses as my parents would take the drive from Humboldt Park on Sunday's for a family dinner. Then we moved to Oak Park and they all closed or moved.

Cathy2 wrote:There was Pickle Barrel Restaurant around there who did serve popcorn. Could this be it?

The Pickle Barrel was at 1423 N Wells. It was opened in the early 1960s by Leo Osher, who later owned Barnum & Bagel (also discussed above).

Wasn't it The Pickle Barrel that was turned into Ripley's Believe it or Not?

not sure but I believe Ripleys was on the opposite side of wells (west)..
Rene G thank you for that bit of nostalgia...great pic

The Pickle Barrel was at 1423 N Wells from the early '60s to the late '70s. Ripley's Believe It or Not opened in 1968 at 1500 N Wells and held on at that location until 1987. I wonder what became of the world's largest hairball. Incidentally, Robert Ripley's first museum was The Odditorium at the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition in 1933.

Glad you liked the picture from an old postcard of mine. Pickle Man is on the address side. In its heyday Pickle Barrel dispensed 12,000 pickles and 400 pounds of popcorn a week.

Rene G wrote:The Pickle Barrel was at 1423 N Wells. It was opened in the early 1960s by Leo Osher, who later owned Barnum & Bagel (also discussed above).

I grew up in Northbrook, and remember the Pickle Barrel that was there, near the Edens & Dundee IIRC.

I just searched and found this article:

"Pickle Barrel restaurant founder Leo Osher, 79 April 25, 1999
Theme restaurants. Magic bars. Comedy nights. Deli trays. Leo Osher was one of the first to try them all, to the delight of Chicagoans who ate at his Corned Beef Center, Pickle Barrel and Barnum and Bagel restaurants.

Mr. Osher, who had homes in Skokie and Cathedral City, Calif., died Tuesday at a hospital in Ontario, Calif., of complications following heart surgery. He was 79.... "