• Michael Gebert

  • Rich Bowen, coauthor of Hot Dog Chicago

  • A snarkier example of the book’s reviewing, though accurate as of the mid-2000s. The place is a cell phone store now.

The idea of devoting serious writing to joint food wasn’t very old—Calvin Trillin and Jane and Michael Stern had only been doing it for about a decade at that point—and a certain air of sarcasm might have been a defense mechanism. But even though Bowen and Fay wrote with cheek, their research and documentation were meticulous, and besides calling out favorite hot dog stands (as well as Italian beef, gyros, and other things), the book included valuable interviews with the heads of companies like David Berg & Co. and Iltaco, the tamale and pizza puff empire. Years later the Sterns would call it “a brilliant overview of Chicago’s street food culture” in a list of essential books. “Interestingly though, over the course of thirty years, any Chicagoan who reads it takes it deadly seriously,” says Bowen. “They don’t see the humor or what we tried to pass as humor. Even Jane and Michael Stern didn’t get it as tongue in cheek. The truth is, we wrote it as a kind of parody of serious restaurant reviewing.”

  • Michael Gebert
  • Hoppin’ Hots’ version of a Chicago dog, with deep-fried pickle and tomato jam

I mentioned that leafing through the book, I’d seen a lot of places that were still around, or at least the building was still a hot dog stand. But there were two areas that used to be strong areas for hot dogs that are virtually frankfurter free today. One was Streeterville, which back then would have still had factories and truck drivers coming off Lower Wacker Drive with deliveries. “Well, Streeterville—I live down there, and it’s owned by Northwestern now,” Bowen said. “They might as well call it Northwesternville. I think you have to go over to Gold Coast Dogs on Rush now, if that’s still there.”

For him, the persistence of Italian beef is proof that we still have a vibrant local fast-foods scene strongly rooted here. “The wonderful thing about Chicago, which was true thirty years ago and is true now, is—yeah, there are Mickey D’s around, but I think the total number of places that are native here, still exceeds the Burger Kings and so on. Well, McDonald’s has fallen on hard times, and good on ’em! Polluting American tastes for fifty years.”