Gennaro's on Taylor St. closing Dec. 20 -- Rumor

heard that through the grapevine.


Gennaro's Restaurant
1352 West Taylor Street
Chicago, IL 60607
312-243-1035

Moderator edit to change forever to rumor in the subject line

Placed a call to confirm. No answer yet. That would make me really sad. I love that place like maybe no other in this city. Here's a piece I wrote on Gennaros a few years ago for Newcity.

Red Sauce Reminiscence
Gennaro's is the kind of restaurant no one writes about until it closes.

It's not the oldest restaurant in the city, it doesn't have liquor license number one, they don't dip the Italian sausage in liquid nitrogen and the interior doesn't look like a Frank Gehry dream of imploding stainless steel. It's just an old red-sauce emporium in Little Italy whose stoop is darkened by the shadow of the ABLA power-plant tower and the crumbling remains of Jane Addams Homes.

Then again, where the face of Chicago dining is often concept-driven by the likes of such corporate titans as Lettuce Entertain You and Levy Restaurants, Gennaro's is still an idiosyncratic family-owned shop. Mom and Pop may be gone, but siblings John Jr. and Mary Jo carry on their birthright. John Jr. tends bar, pouring tipples of a garnet Chianti, the same house formula his father served in 1959, into small glass tumblers. Mary Jo works the room like a Southern-fried waitress, peppering her conversation with a well-placed "honey" or offering a reassuring pat on the back of regulars.

Gennaro's has made few concessions to history. You can't just walk into the restaurant. John buzzes you in from behind the bar, the electric door strike hissing like an angry cobra. When I asked Mary Jo why they still do this, in a neighborhood where $300,000-plus condos are popping up like peas in Chicken Vesuvio? She says, "We always have, it's the just way it was when we started."

The bar is lined with deep black booths and old vinyl stools. The brown plywood wainscoted walls are adorned with taxidermied sport fish (caught by the family) and faded celebrity photos. It reminds me of my childhood friend Pete's basement, which his father had transformed into an Italian man den. Sitting in the restaurant, my nostrils flare at the memory of the flatulent stench of cheap cigar smoke wafting up the stairs as Pete and I snuck down to spy on his dad's weekly card game.

Patrons watch baseball on one of the last tube-style TV's in any bar in Chicago. Plasma is what you donate, not what you watch at Gennaro's. This is clearly a Sox den, because the only decorative nod to modernity in the whole joint is a wall mounted t-shirt with the Cub's logo spelling out "cork," a silent taunt to the tainted legacy of Sammy Sosa.

The bar is separated from the small dining room by white drapery and a black scrim that recalls the divider in a Catholic confessional. Walking through it, I'm tempted to make the sign of the cross, and whisper, "Bless me father....", but my only sins tonight are those committed against the waistline.

Mary Joe and John serve food of love, cooking up the original recipes of their mother Eleanore under the light of a vintage Leinenkugel's beer clock hanging in the postage-stamp kitchen. Fat sausages nestle in a hill of flame-roasted sweet green peppers and wafer-thin calamari is dusted with the deep-fried kiss of cornmeal and served with wedges of lemon. No tomato sauce is used to mask the crunchy texture and fresh sea flavor. The house-made pastas, egg noodles studded with delicate medallions of veal and torpedoes of airy gnocchi awash in a ruddy spicy red sauce are impeccable. I try to resist, but soon I am as full as the overstuffed manicotti bursting with pearls of ricotta that fly past my table.

Even the empty pair of child booster seats sitting on a metal coat rack, their worn leather backs and elegant throne-like wooden pedestals suggest a story. These aren't modern extruded plastic boosters you'd get at Denny's, and I'm willing to bet some of the older clientele who slurp noodles at nearby tables once perched in these seats as toddlers. Gennaro's endurance is reassuring, a steadfast comfort that makes mortality seem like a dream. The bodies may be softer, the knees weaker and the backs stooped, but the old regulars brought their children here, and those folks bring their children. As long as the pasta stays fresh and the wood stays dark, I'm pretty sure Gennaro's ain't ever closing.


Gennaro's, 1352 West Taylor, (312)243-1035.

One of my favorite Italian spots. I have been ordering their braciole and anchovy salad for many years, and they have always been terrific. I wonder why they're closing, but I doubt it is from lack of business. They don't make them like this anymore.

What a nice piece MJN...very well written...

You say they have no liquor license, but you mention a bar....do they serve drinks there?

They do serve booze-what MJN was saying is that they don't have the first license in the city, or any other huge feature that would set them apart.

has this closing been confirmed??

Would make a point of having dinner there tonight, if so.

I just called Gennaro's and said I had heard they were closing, is it true? The man who answered the phone was extremely surprised, but said "I'm just an employee, you're asking the wrong person." Then he hung up.

By the way, there is no sign about them closing visible from the street. I drive by there every day and have been looking since Monday.

So... in the absence of hard evidence to the contrary I would guess (hope?) that the rumor posted above is not true. (Yet. There is a "for sale" sign on the building, but that's been there for at least a year...)

Maybe someone heard they were going to be closed between Xmas and NY and took the ball and ran with it?

Maybe this is just a RUMOUR... quite possible either way... As Amata noted, the for-sale sign on the building is worthy of note but we made note of that about a year ago or so, so it's been there a long, long time... and over here on the west side of Taylor, none of my old-timer friends seem to have heard anything about this... The OP, if he had a credible source, should perhaps have indicated that...

Antonius

I'm not buying it until I see some tweets.

Why doesn't somebody go have a braciole and ask them if they're closing...

I'll be there tonight for dinner and report back.

A rumor like this came out about 4 years ago. I called and they said it wasn't true at the time, and that that was a rumor that seems to come around every once in a while. Hopefully it isn't true.

Confirmed they are staying open when I ate there Friday night.

I ate there very many times, and the last time I had sandals on. As we left the bar and the ever lovely Johnny, my shoe got stuck in the many layers of whatever in the carpet, came off and my foot hit the floor with a resounding squish!! Yikes! Step up, down and squish though my toes!

chainey wrote:Confirmed they are staying open when I ate there Friday night.

I was there on Friday as well. When my wife asked the waiter if they are closing he said "Yeah, the building is for sale.." so its contingent on the sale of the building I suppose.

Does anybody know Gennaro's schedule? They are not often open when you would expect them to be.

Cogito wrote:Does anybody know Gennaro's schedule? They are not often open when you would expect them to be.

I heard a rumor that they will be closed Dec 20.

Great news!!!

From ChicagoMag.com

Sep 15, 2010
CooKoo Room Out, Gennaro’s In
BY PENNY POLLACK AND KAITLIN PETERSEN WITH DENISE PEÑACERRADA


Just Like Mama Used to Make

After Aldino’s fizzled within four months, the owner, Scott Harris, flirted with the idea of a college bar, The CooKoo Room. Now, he’s determined to bring tradition back to Little Italy, teaming up with Mary Jo Gennaro to revive Gennaro’s (626 S. Racine Ave.; 312-226-9300), the family restaurant her parents opened in 1959, which shuttered last year. The atmosphere may be less cozy, with about 100 seats, but the food will be the same—which is exactly how Harris, a long-time customer of the original, wants it. “These are all my mother’s recipes,” says Gennaro, referring to a menu that will be chock-full of veal and eggplant Parmesan, braciola (rolled beef stuffed with meats and cheeses, served over pasta), and from-scratch cannoli. The partners are shooting for an early November opening, and Gennaro, who will be in the kitchen as well as at the front of the house, can hardly wait. “I love the business,” she says. “It’s all I know.”

rooster,

Clearly you are a fan. I hope you will come back to report your experience once it returns.

Regards,

I could definitely see the charm of Gennaro's, it was a cozy old school place and the people were welcoming, but it was that heavy, rasty old Italian-American food where the red sauce tastes like it has three-day-old coffee in it. Becoming part of Scott Harris' Disneyfied Taylor Street only means losing the part I liked and keeping the part I didn't....

Mike, I take it you won't like Scott Harris' plan for the old Gennaro's space then...

Seems like two seconds ago that Scott Harris (Mia Francesca et al.) told us he was retooling and reopening the Little Italy stalwart Gennaro’s (626 S. Racine Ave.; no phone yet) in his short-lived Aldino’s space. Now that Harris nailed a November opening for that oldie but goodie, he's had his next brainstorm—The Ballroom, coming this spring, to 1352 West Taylor Street (where the original Gennaro’s was). Scott Harris doing a fancy nightclub? No way. “All meatballs,” says Harris. “Five to seven different kinds—pork, veal, vegetable, chicken, turkey, maybe a fish meatball. Smashed meatballs, five or so kinds of sliders. Five different sauces. Wine and beer. Big communal table. Just fun.” Now that sounds like Scott Harris.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Radar/Dish/October-2010/Life-After-Trotters-Matthias-Mergess-New-Project/

Sounds interesting to me.... and I love me some good meatballs...

I think overall it's a good thing that Harris is breathing new life into the strip, considering the alternative which is disappearing entirely. A lot of it was pretty ossified, or a good deal more plastic than a Mia Francesca. But a whole strip belonging to one developer starts to feel like one continuous restaurant, and a new Gennaro's without the old Taylor St. atmosphere doesn't excite me a lot. Better to have a strip with some shiny new places and a few old places, which I can like even without liking that style of food that much. Like the Dude, it's good to know they're out there.

As far as excitement goes, I'm more excited by Three Aces, for marking the return of Matt Troost, who I think showed huge promise at the short-lived Fianco.

Yeah I agree, it's good that Taylor St. is being revitalized (especially since I live a block away) but it would be nice if more of the new places weren't Scott Harris ventures... I read somewhere that he is planning on opening a bakery and gelato stand soon as well...

When did the Gennaro's place on Taylor St. close? No one actually reported a closing here.

If you takje a charming place with mediocre food and move it to a less charming space, what are you left with?
Admittedly I'm not a big red sauce fan, and when I have that itch it's Rosebud for me, but I can't imagine moving an old school red sauce place close to Tuffano's is a great move, because while I didn't like the food at Genaro's and don't like Tuffano's (because as Mike G says that "three day old coffee" taste) people who do like that flock to Tuffano's

I like having both Italian-America spots, and some more authentically Italian spots in the area (plus every other ethnicity), and I am in love with Davanti. I'm curious with the opening of Davanti and Three Aces how the comment (about Aldino's, which I also loved) "right concept wrong neighborhood" applies? I found it mildly insulting and now seems to be getting proven untrue.

I think (based on what a friend told me yesterday) that the new Gennaro's might also be going under the name Salatino's. (Or else is just called Salatino's.) My friend and his wife were Gennaro's stalwarts and have visited the new place and liked it. If you look up Salatino's on Yelp and other such places you see that they are at the same address (626 S. Racine) listed in some of the articles for the re-opened Gennaro's.