Can you name this extinct Chicago Italian restaurant?

Test your memories: I'm trying to get the name of an extinct Italian restaurant (circa 1967) in downtown Chicago. It was located on the north side of Lake Street between State and Wabash...a few doors east of State. It was very unpretentious looking from the outside, but the interior was decorated sort of like The Village in the Italian Village....quite pretty. For the life of me I cannot think of the name nor can any of my friends who dined with me there. Anyone out there have a clue?

MIllich wrote:Anyone out there have a clue?

I have a menu.

That's beautiful. I was never there, but I miss it.
From the demi tasse for 15 cents, to the option of an anchovy sandwich or chicken livers venetian style, I want to go there immediately.
Actually, I don't think I've seen fegato alla veneziana on a menu since Avanzare's heyday, and I miss it. Theirs was really good.

Rene,

Do you know what year the menu is from?

mrbarolo wrote:That's beautiful. I was never there, but I miss it.
From the demi tasse for 15 cents, to the option of an anchovy sandwich or chicken livers venetian style, I want to go there immediately.

And I'm sure you'll be happy to hear they served Barolo. I don't have a separate wine list but one of the six Italian wines on the regular menu (without price or vintage) is Barolo Ascuitto.

Also note Risotto a la Milanese. More evidence that Scoozi wasn't the first Chicago restaurant to have the dish on their menu.

scottsol wrote:Do you know what year the menu is from?

No, there's no indication on the menu. From prices, typography and artwork I would guess 1950s but that's only a guess.

Boveri opened in 1926 (or maybe 1919; there are some inconsistencies in the historical record) at 1645 E 53rd. In any case, it's mentioned in John Drury's Dining in Chicago from 1931. In 1940 there were two Boveri Restaurants—the Hyde Park location and the newer one at 20 E Lake. The Hyde Park restaurant closed sometime in the early 1940s while the downtown location held out until late 1971 when the building was vacated to make way for what is now Harold Washington College.

I never ate at Boveri but had the pleasure of dining several times in the 1970s at La Russo, a later Italian restaurant in Boveri's original location. It opened in the early 1950s; Linde's Restaurant occupied that space in the interim. As I recall La Russo's food was nothing special but the upstairs dining room seemed straight out of the '20s. And you should have seen the characters hanging out in the bar. I bet many had been drinking there since it was Boveri's.

From prices, typography and artwork I would guess 1950s but that's only a guess.

Yeah, especially the use of Gill Sans (or a close knockoff) on the inside, very 40s-50s (also very British, but not the reason for its use in this case, I assume). Typographically it's quite the mix of styles, from Gill Sans and department store-ish Bodoni to the art deco script in the image and the Bauhausish 3-D font for MENU. Kind of a dinner jacket with a top hat and a Hawaiian shirt.

Any idea when phone numbers went to 7 digits from 6 in Chicago?

Mike G wrote:Yeah, especially the use of Gill Sans (or a close knockoff) on the inside, very 40s-50s (also very British, but not the reason for its use in this case, I assume).

Any idea when phone numbers went to 7 digits from 6 in Chicago?

Thanks. I knew that was right up your alley. I almost sent you a PM asking about the font etc but decided I might as well take a stab at it.

As for phone numbers, I wish I knew when the formats changed in Chicago. It's not as easy to figure that out by Googling as I thought. Anyone know?

Mike G wrote:

Any idea when phone numbers went to 7 digits from 6 in Chicago?

If this site is correct the answer is 1921. Here is the link:


http://forgottenchicago.com/features/chicago-signs/old-telephone-numbers/

I wouldn't have guessed that early. So much for that clue-- Bodoni Poster (designed 1929) put it later than that...

The menu looks quite different from my memory of the late 1960s, when it was more heavily Italian. Of course, just getting rid of those sandwiches would make the overall menu more heavily Italian. The food was better than at the upstairs restaurant in the Italian Village with a much calmer atmosphere and only slightly higher prices. I liked it for pre-CSO dining. The walk to Orchestra Hall was a good way to work off some of the calories. Back then the Saturday evening concerts started at 8:30 and I was forty or so years younger, so I would not try that even if they were still open.

The shrimp a la Boveri were similar to shrimp De Jonghe with a layer of potato slices to absorb some of the butter. I remember it as a hot antipasto or appetizer under the name shrimp Boveri.

I do not know if they would have survived the dark days of the early to mid 1970s in the Loop even if the City Colleges had not used eminent domain to grab the land. The rest of the college site was surface parking lots with Boveri's building being the only one taken.

Mike G wrote: Any idea when phone numbers went to 7 digits from 6 in Chicago?

I wrote:As for phone numbers, I wish I knew when the formats changed in Chicago. It's not as easy to figure that out by Googling as I thought. Anyone know?

When I got home I was able to consult some pulp-based resources. As JP1121 mentioned above, Chicago telephone numbers have been 7 digits for a long time but the presentation changed in the late 1940s. A phone book from December 1947 uses the format BUT erfld-xxxx but one from March 1950 has the newer BU trfld 8-xxxx style. Armed with that knowledge I looked at some Carson Pirie Scott ads from that era. It seems they changed the format of their number in September 1948.

Because the ANdover 3- prefix is used, the menu was printed after late 1948.

ekreider wrote:The menu looks quite different from my memory of the late 1960s, when it was more heavily Italian. Of course, just getting rid of those sandwiches would make the overall menu more heavily Italian.

What I have is a lunch menu (it has a separate insert of lunch specials). It wouldn't surprise me if they had a different dinner menu without the sandwiches.

Thanks for your recollections. I was actually wondering about Shrimps a la Boveri. Any idea how Ravioli a la Boveri were prepared?

I don't think I ever had ravioli there and rarely had pasta of any sort. I probably ate veal more often than anything else.

Thank you all for the responses. I forgot to tell you that I knew it began with a "B" but you got it anyway! Mystery finally solved and I'm so happy I found this site!

The Chicago Italian restaurant I really miss is Fricano's,
which was an Italian seafood restaurant in Lincoln Park.
They had a grilled octopus on the menu that was to die for!
It was one of my favorite spots when the hubs and I were first married (early '80's)
and I was working at Children's Memorial..and he at CHannel 32 in Marina Towers.
great place for dinner after work!

I can't believe someone remembered this restaurant. In the fifties I would beg my Dad to take me there. Murals on the walls made you feel like you were in Italy, I was between 5 & 10 at the time. First time I tasted Lezza's spumoni was here. Had it every time we went.

irisarbor wrote:The Chicago Italian restaurant I really miss is Fricano's...

For me, it'll always be Agostino's, upstairs at 7 E. Delaware. Wonderful, old-school Chicago Italian. It lasted till sometime in the 70s. I nicked a couple of pics from a postcard auction:

Here's a second on the Fricano's memory. The place was terrific! It was on Halsted, north of Fullerton and had terrific seafood. Our favorite was the bay scallops in lemon butter over pasta.

Here's a nice old matchbook from Boveri, probably from the mid-1940s.

I am new and do not know how to link to a particular post, but I do remember the phone number change. Before 1948 there we no dial phones, the exchange was spoken, so it was not a question of the number of letters, it was exchange plus 4 numbers. Mine was Esterbrook 4733. In 1948 they prepared for dialing, and also divided the exchange into Esterbrook 8 and Esterbrook 9. On the dial phone it was ES 9 4733. So the 5th number was not fixed by the third letter.

This is amazing to see! My grandfather was the last Boveri to run the restaurant until it was bought by the city in the 1970's on eminent domain. We think the restaurant would have survived, but no, it would not have been realistic to reopen the restaurant during the 70s, so my grandfather decided to pass on opening it back up in the loop. As far as we know, the restaurant opened in 1926, or at least that is what my grandfather would put on menus and business cards.

I have what I think is a newer menu than the ones you showed. It's cheerily multi colored and looks like it's from the Jetsons. I honestly have never even bothered to try and date it, but I think it is from the late 60s or even the last menu used before it closed. It hung in my room at my parents house for most of my life; nobody ever thinks it's from a real restaurant!

If anyone is interested, I may be able to post some low-res interior shots in black and white. We recently had a flood, but luckily it seems all the Boveri restaurant memorabilia survived completely untouched by water. We never had much, but in the cleanup we found stuff I've never seen before.

I wish I could answer any questions about the menu, but my dad was a young child when the restaurant closed. Thanks again to everyone who shared fond memories of my family's restaurant!