Chicagoans Hurry to Savor a Last Bite of City's History
CHICAGO — Warmed by a heavy overcoat and decades of savory memories, Shelton Latmer waited tearfully Thursday outside the Berghoff.
For about 40 years, he has regularly stopped at the city's oldest restaurant for a platter of piping hot Wiener schnitzel, or to dig into a bowl of slightly bitter red cabbage and a dish of luscious creamed spinach.
Whenever there was something to celebrate -- his 21st birthday, his first job, the birth of his last grandchild -- Latmer said he would come to the corner of West Adams and South State streets, step up to the dark-wood bar and heft a mug of the Berghoff's own Dortmunder-style brew. It was, after all, a tradition at the restaurant known for obtaining the city's first post-Prohibition liquor license.
Now, in a move that has shocked Chicagoans, the Berghoff family has decided to shut its doors after 107 years. Its last day is Feb. 28.
"A Chicago without Berghoff's is like a Chicago without the wind," said Latmer, 52, a former stockbroker. "It's part of this city's heritage."
To see it close, "It makes me sick," he said.
The demise of the beloved eatery is the latest in a string of endings among city icons -- including the pending closure of the City News Service, a scrappy news outlet where author Kurt Vonnegut once worked, and the loss of Marshall Field's department store, being revamped next year into a Macy's.
But such closures come at a time when downtown Chicago is booming, and the number of commercial and residential projects are on the rise. More people live within walking distance of the Berghoff now than have lived in the area in many decades, noted Bill Savage, senior lecturer in the English Department at Northwestern University and an expert in Chicago history.
"Change is a double-edged sword: New things come and old things go away," Savage said. "What people are mourning isn't necessarily the loss of schnitzel or strudel. It's about losing the ability to experience a place where our fathers and grandfathers gathered. It's about losing things that connect us to the past, both to the history of the city and the individual's history of the city."
Indeed, closing the restaurant was not done for economic reasons, the family says. There's typically a 30-minute wait to get seated, and food experts say it's believed to be one of the most profitable eateries in this culinary town.
