Oven Fresh Bakery at Harlem & Foster is gone, and with it, a piece of my childhood.

I just got an email saying that the Brazzaz Brazillian Steakhouse is closing today.
Brazzaz Brazillian Steakhouse
539 N. Dearborn St
Chicago, IL 60654

Branko Palikuca, co-owner of the Dawson in Chicago with Billy Lawless, is opening a restaurant in Oak Park. The restaurant, to be called Citrine Cafe, will be located on the southeast corner of South Boulevard and Oak Park Avenue. The 4,430-square-foot, ground-floor storefront features 12-foot ceilings and brick walls.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... restaurant

Crain's reports that Brazzaz closed a week after a federal suit was filed charging failure to pay employees overtime and minimum wage. Not too surprising that the email announcement did not give a reason.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... use-closes

The Jaffa Bakery that has long been under construction at the corner of Devon and McCormick has a banner in the window saying that they will open April 29th. Looks like they have a drive-thru station.

Heavenston Eatery, the new venture by the Brown Sack folks, is finally open.

Yet another old-school German restaurant succumbs to changing tastes and times as Mirabell announces it will be closing soon. They don't give a specific date.

http://mirabellrestaurant.weebly.com/

It has been several years since we ate at Mirabell. The food was mediocre then. Their weeknight clientele seemed depend heavily on old people from the neighborhood.

The location has some real disadvantages due to resident only parking nearby with parking available in the KMart lot across Addison.

ekreider wrote:It has been several years since we ate at Mirabell. The food was mediocre then. Their weeknight clientele seemed depend heavily on old people from the neighborhood.

The location has some real disadvantages due to resident only parking nearby with parking available in the KMart lot across Addison.

Yeah, the neighbors didn't do the place any favors when they lobbied for the the 24/7 permit-parking restrictions. The owner tells me that cost them roughly 30% of their business right there, and of course most people just driving by don't know they can park in the K-Mart lot.

I don't understand why streets lined with SFHs with their own garages would ever need to have permit parking. I guess helping to drive an erstwhile thriving business out of the neighborhood is just a small price to pay to not have to clean your garage out so you'll always have a place to park.

Drover wrote:Yet another old-school German restaurant succumbs to changing tastes and times as Mirabell announces it will be closing soon. They don't give a specific date.

http://mirabellrestaurant.weebly.com/

We had a GNR committee meeting there a couple of years ago. I was not impressed in the least by the food.

Drover wrote:I don't understand why streets lined with SFHs with their own garages would ever need to have permit parking. I guess helping to drive an erstwhile thriving business out of the neighborhood is just a small price to pay to not have to clean your garage out so you'll always have a place to park.

It's not necessarily so that they don't have to use the garage--it's more likely a) you have more than one car and/or b) you don't want people you don't know all over your neighborhood.

1) I don't know of a single garage on that block that can't hold more than one car; 2) if you don't want people you don't know all over the neighborhood, you have no business living right on a business corridor.

I'm sure the folks at Mirabell would appreciate your defense but the food there was still crappy so no mourning from me.

Mrs. D's Wilmette Diner (in the cozy little 'hood surrounding the Linden Ave. El station) is now the Windy City Pie Co.. The bare-bones website was short on specifics, but I spoke to the owner (Sara) a bit earlier, and verified that they are in fact open, and have been for a month, and are doing enough business that they have already expanded their hours (!). With pies such as the "BOURBON WALNUT CHOCOLATE - Fresh walnuts and chocolate with in a bourbon custard," I can understand why. Bulletins as events warrant. (Genius location, BTW, especially since they offer flash-frozen savory supper pies, too.)

Hours:
Tuesday - Friday: 9AM - 6PM
Saturday: 9-5
(Also occasional Sundays, as need be - no set hours yet)

Windy City Pie Co.
415 4th St., just south of Linden Ave.
Wilmette, IL 60091
847.337.1555

boudreaulicious wrote:I'm sure the folks at Mirabell would appreciate your defense but the food there was still crappy so no mourning from me.

I finally get to disagree with you snooty foodies. Once the son took over the food got pretty good to me for German food. Youse guys are the same folks who think Smak Tak is the cat's meow too for Polish food, which I don't at all.

sundevilpeg wrote:Mrs. D's Wilmette Diner (in the cozy little 'hood surrounding the Linden Ave. El station) is now the Windy City Pie Co.. The bare-bones website was short on specifics, but I spoke to the owner (Sara) a bit earlier, and verified that they are in fact open, and have been for a month, and are doing enough business that they have already expanded their hours (!). With pies such as the "BOURBON WALNUT CHOCOLATE - Fresh walnuts and chocolate with in a bourbon custard," I can understand why. Bulletins as events warrant. (Genius location, BTW, especially since they offer flash-frozen savory supper pies, too.)

Hours:
Tuesday - Friday: 9AM - 6PM
Saturday: 9-5
(Also occasional Sundays, as need be - no set hours yet)

Windy City Pie Co.
415 4th St., just south of Linden Ave.
Wilmette, IL 60091
847.337.1555

What happened to Mr. & Mrs. D? Dimitri and Christina were the original owners of Edgebrook Diner (well, not the originals, but the ones who put Edgebrook Diner on the LTH Forum map). I used to stop in for breakfast and to say hello from time to time. As much as I love some good pie, Mrs. D's will be sorely missed.

stevez wrote:

sundevilpeg wrote:Mrs. D's Wilmette Diner (in the cozy little 'hood surrounding the Linden Ave. El station) is now the Windy City Pie Co.. The bare-bones website was short on specifics, but I spoke to the owner (Sara) a bit earlier, and verified that they are in fact open, and have been for a month, and are doing enough business that they have already expanded their hours (!). With pies such as the "BOURBON WALNUT CHOCOLATE - Fresh walnuts and chocolate with in a bourbon custard," I can understand why. Bulletins as events warrant. (Genius location, BTW, especially since they offer flash-frozen savory supper pies, too.)

Hours:
Tuesday - Friday: 9AM - 6PM
Saturday: 9-5
(Also occasional Sundays, as need be - no set hours yet)

Windy City Pie Co.
415 4th St., just south of Linden Ave.
Wilmette, IL 60091
847.337.1555

What happened to Mr. & Mrs. D? Dimitri and Christina were the original owners of Edgebrook Diner (well, not the originals, but the ones who put Edgebrook Diner on the LTH Forum map). I used to stop in for breakfast and to say hello from time to time. As much as I love some good pie, Mrs. D's will be sorely missed.

I feel like a perennial naysayer around here, but my wife and I "discovered" the Edgebrook Diner not long after Dmitri bought it and we were regulars for a long time. We have friends in Wilmette and would occasionally meet at Mrs. D's when they opened there. However, we went back a year or two ago after a long absence and it was simply an awful experience. A bland and mediocre breakfast that made me long for Walker Brothers (and I loathe Walker Brothers).

Sometimes restaurants close for complex reasons, other times they close because they stopped drawing customers in the door.

Drover wrote:Yet another old-school German restaurant succumbs to changing tastes and times as Mirabell announces it will be closing soon. They don't give a specific date.

http://mirabellrestaurant.weebly.com/

I saw that it's this Sunday, 5/3.

kenji wrote:

boudreaulicious wrote:I'm sure the folks at Mirabell would appreciate your defense but the food there was still crappy so no mourning from me.

I finally get to disagree with you snooty foodies. Once the son took over the food got pretty good to me for German food. Youse guys are the same folks who think Smak Tak is the cat's meow too for Polish food, which I don't at all.

I am also a big fan and I'll miss this place. I haven't had a bad meal there in the year and a half I've been going. I also just liked the look of the place, and the tunes...

This is a damn shame. This and Oven Fresh in the same week, phooey!

In regard to the parking, I don't know about St. Louis, but Bernard has free parking, that's only one block east.

One other (possibly pedantic) note about Mirabell. It was self-described as Austrian, not German.

=R=

It's German all over their website.

Shit, just buffet the rest of the week. No more duck grilled cheese!

ronnie_suburban wrote:One other (possibly pedantic) note about Mirabell. It was self-described as Austrian, not German.

=R=

No, they described themselves (when asked) as being named after a place in Austria. They have always, at least for as long as I can remember, described themselves as a German restaurant. To wit, on their website: "Chicago's best German food" and in their closing notice, "there are a limited number of days left to toast a beer to one of Chicago's German icons." Not to mention their black/red/yellow color theme rather than red/white.

stevelip wrote:A sign at 1048 W. Belmont in Lakeview is announcing the opening of the Beef Shack this summer. It is the third Beef Shack. One is in St Charles, and there is another in Hoffman Estates. Has anyone been to any of their other locations?

I have not had Beef Shack yet, but it seems to follow that same Western Suburb MO of cheesy beef sandwiches, sometimes on garlic bread like Zippy's. At least they have fresh cut fries.

I'm not mourning Mirabell principally because of an experience that happened decades ago. (And which was the occasion of my last visit.) Three of us came in fairly close to closing, but we didn't know it. If they had said, "Sorry, we're about to close," it would have been far better for us. Instead they sat us, and then treated us with a mix of scorn and thinly veiled "you're not from around here, are you" mockery. I've never felt less comfortable in a restaurant.

riddlemay wrote:I'm not mourning Mirabell principally because of an experience that happened decades ago. (And which was the occasion of my last visit.) Three of us came in fairly close to closing, but we didn't know it. If they had said, "Sorry, we're about to close," it would have been far better for us. Instead they sat us, and then treated us with a mix of scorn and thinly veiled "you're not from around here, are you" mockery. I've never felt less comfortable in a restaurant.

Hard to judge any restaurant fairly when you're arriving "fairly close to closing."

spinynorman99 wrote:

riddlemay wrote:I'm not mourning Mirabell principally because of an experience that happened decades ago. (And which was the occasion of my last visit.) Three of us came in fairly close to closing, but we didn't know it. If they had said, "Sorry, we're about to close," it would have been far better for us. Instead they sat us, and then treated us with a mix of scorn and thinly veiled "you're not from around here, are you" mockery. I've never felt less comfortable in a restaurant.

Hard to judge any restaurant fairly when you're arriving "fairly close to closing."

The judging is easy. It's enduring the experience that's hard.

=R=

Mirabell was Austrian prior to 1977 when the current family acquired the business and changed the orientation to German. To their credit they do not claim the prior incarnation in their history.

ronnie_suburban wrote:

spinynorman99 wrote:

riddlemay wrote:I'm not mourning Mirabell principally because of an experience that happened decades ago. (And which was the occasion of my last visit.) Three of us came in fairly close to closing, but we didn't know it. If they had said, "Sorry, we're about to close," it would have been far better for us. Instead they sat us, and then treated us with a mix of scorn and thinly veiled "you're not from around here, are you" mockery. I've never felt less comfortable in a restaurant.

Hard to judge any restaurant fairly when you're arriving "fairly close to closing."

The judging is easy. It's enduring the experience that's hard.

If by "enduring the experience," you mean enduring the experience of being treated like sh*t, I agree with you.

As I said, if we arrived too late for them, I would have greatly preferred to be politely told this rather than to be seated and then subjected to passive-aggressive abuse.

Thong Thai, across from the Leaning Tower in Niles has closed. There is a sign on the window that says the space is for lease, and a hand written sign on the door saying the owner died suddenly on March 7th. This was actually a GNR several years ago when they were in their previous location at Central & Foster and called "My Choice." Same owner, same grandma cooking, same menu. The Thai food there was like no other Thai food I have ever had, and they will be sorely missed.