Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant & Bakery, Chicago, IL

Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant & Bakery located just outside of the loop in Chicago Illinois, is probably the only historic Route 66 eatery to be in the Michelin guide (here’s the link)

In spite of this being a Chicago institution, I think this is probably my very first time eating at Lou Mitchell’s. This is ironic, considering that I was born and raised in the northern suburbs and got my undergraduate degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which is about a 10 minute walk away.

The most likely reason for this is that Lou Mitchell’s only does breakfast and lunch and my family usually came downtown in the evenings, and I ate my lunches during college either in the school cafeteria or at any of the restaurants within a block or two of school.

I got the apple and cheddar omelette because I’ve never had one before… which was served with Greek toast (toast made using greek style bread with sesame seeds on it). The omelette is ridiculously fluffy… it’s good.. but would have been better with a much sharper cheddar, and maybe folding the apples INTO the omelette rather than topping it… and I think raw crispy apples that were tart would have been better than cooked

That said there was clear Route 66 theme to the restaurant, with all the 66 branded stuff being specific to the restaurant rather than any of that hopeless generic stuff.

Gardner, Illinois: home of the two cell Jail and the Riviera Restaurant

Driving along route 66 there are “designated stops” and if you want to really do it (66 I mean) you sort of have to stop at them, even if when you do you find yourself going… “OK then, this is it.” These two “attractions” in Gardner Illinois pretty much fall into that category.

The first of these is the a jail with only two cells in it. Built in 1906 the community has recently renovated it and turned it into a tourist attraction. No one was in there providing information,

There was however a recorded message you could listen to. Adjacent to this was a monument/replica of a historically important but recently destroyed by fire (2010) diner that had existed on route 66 in Gardner. Built in 1928, in what had originally been a horse-drawn-streetcar, and then expanded from that into a larger adjoining building

the Riviera Restaurant was a reputed favorite hangout for Al Capone because during prohibition it secretly offered gambling and a drink.

I found this video on YouTube taken of the fire department trying to save the structure as it burnt to the ground. The original location was NOT next to the jail cell but rather a little bit outside of town — a more secluded location — along route 66

This sign stands at the restaurants original location

That said…. Gardner has put up at this location an information board about one of its most famous former citizens, a native of Norway, the Reverend Christian Christiansen. Born in 1859, the reverend first came to the area between 1897-1907, moved to Wisconsin for 20 years, but then returned for his retirement. In 1942, when he was 83, he read an article in the Chicago Tribune about how the Nazis were trying to develop an atom bomb and had built a heavy water plant that the Allies couldn’t destroy because of the protection of a mountain shelf, and battleships couldn’t navigate the fiords. As he read the article he realized it was the area he had grown up in, and contacted the military with the information they needed to attack the plant.

Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Dorothy’s final resting place, Bloomington, IL

Some Graveyards are worth a visit because of the important people who are buried there. About two blocks off of Route 66 in Bloomington, Illinois is the Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, which is just such a graveyard

the reason, in my mind, is because it is where THE real Dorothy, Dorthy Gale, she of the Wizard of Oz, is buried…

Dorothy Louise Gage, born June 11 1898, and died November of that same year. She was the niece of Frank L Baum, and he made her immortal.

FINDING the grave wasn’t all that easy. Just as you come into the graveyard there’s a caretaker’s house, with a map, but it’s not all that easy to follow. There’s also a memorial garden there in her memory, but that’s not the grave.

In the images below, the top left one shows the statue on the left edge, and the grave (just in front of the tree in the back right corner, in the shade) where it sits between the two green bushes.

I ended up at first on the road between the plot section at the back edge of the graveyard. From there I found the statue easily enough but it was just far enough from the actual grave as to sort of mislead you (you’re in the right plot, you just can’t spot the grave). So I went back to the house asked various locals visiting their loved ones (who seemed to have no idea that in fact Dorothy was buried there, let alone where), checked the map again, and this time found the road in FRONT of the lot, where the big plaque showing the statue AND the grave is located. With that, and now knowing what the grave looked like, I was able with some effort to find the grave.

The same graveyard has the graves for Adlai Stevenson (Governor of Illinois from 1948 to 1953, has an expressway named after him) but I don’t care as much about him… He’s just a politician, time will forget about him

Chick-fil-A Dwarf House, Hapeville, Georgia

This outlet of the politically controversial but highly popular Chick-Fil-A fast food chain, in Hapeville Georgia, is the location of the brands first restaurant.

A lot of my friends boycott this chain, due to their stand on LGBT rights… because the owners donate VAST sums to lobbying groups that try to keep same-sex marriage illegal and members of the LGBT community oppressed… as someone who rejects single issue politics, I tend to be a bit ‘flexible’ in how I look at this business. That said, I can’t discuss this chain without addressing the problem.

Let’s be clear…I strongly disagree with Chick-fil-A’s politics regarding LGBT issues, but at the same time I do respect them for their general lack of hypocrisy with regards to their interpretation of what it means to be a good Christian. What a lot of people don’t realize is that Americans eat more chicken on Sundays then they do any other day of the week. That said, Chick-fil-A, whose main product is chicken, is closed on Sundays… ALL of them without exception. Even if they are located in malls. The company in effect is choosing to lose $1.019 billion+ per year rather than go against their religious beliefs — and that amount is only the cost of being closed one day out of the week, it does not take into account the BUMP that comes from most Americans consuming more chicken on Sundays. Ergo, for a food chain whose main product is chicken to choose to be closed on a Sunday because that’s God‘s day –a day when they believe their workers should be at home with their families or at church, THAT is really putting your money where your mouth is …. although, that said… others have argued that being closed one day a week is part of WHY the chain is so profitable.

And their adherence does not end there…. for instance, just a few weeks ago, I went in to one in Strongsville, Ohio in order to get a cup of coffee (I REALLY needed some caffeine, the only coffee at the adjacent Costco was full of carbs I didn’t need… and I couldn’t spot a McDonald’s). When I walked in the door this store had hired a girl with a serious case of downs syndrome to open doors for customers (clearly they made work for her so she could have the self-respect that comes from making your own money and having a purpose). Then, when the manager discovered that I was only there for a cup of coffee he gave it to me for free. This is NOT in any way unusual to my experience for Chick-fil-A outlets, in fact its more likely than not.

Truett Cathy, the company founder (memorialized in the sculpture above), and his brother opened a diner at this location, in 1946 and called it The Dwarf Grill because of the little red door in the picture above. The Diner was later renamed the dwarf house, but of course this was back before it was highly politically incorrect to call little people Dwarfs because of their Dwarfism.

Apparently he then had the idea to open a smaller version of the diner (apparently without his brother) that just sold his popular chicken sandwich at a mall (this was well before food courts existed in malls, and the idea was therefore radical) … and thus the chain began

The interior of this location is a Diner, unlike the rest of the chain which is fast food

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30