Service with a Smile

By: Katherine Montalto | April 23 2010
Posted in Find It - Chicago

Ed Debevic’s in Chicago is a restaurant full of campy humor where the servers, decked out in 50’s style polyester, dish out sassy mock rudeness for goodnatured abuse all in clean fun. It’s a sought out destination for most tourists, many who find that the atmosphere more than makes up for the mediocre menu. It’s a family favorite and most locals have fond childhood memories of birthday dinners at Ed Debevic’s ordering the world’s smallest ice cream sundae, served in a shot glass. When certain songs come on the juke box the staff is known to jump up on the counters to sing and dance to the music. Good, wholesome, all-American fun!

Photo: Katherine Montalto

The Wieners Circle is another Chicago establishment known for its rude staff but there’s nothing cute or campy about it. The customers are just as rude if not more so than the staff. That’s exactly where this story begins. Many bars in Chicago are open until 4 or 5am on Saturday nights so many burrito huts and hot dog stands are open late to cash in on the scores of drunks pouring out of the bars looking to fill their alcohol-soaked stomachs with greasy food.

In the affluent Lincoln Park neighborhood that hot dog stand is The Wiener Circle. Larry Gold, one of the two owners of the stand, used some colorful language to get the attention of belligerent patrons and the rest, as they say, is history. The rest of the staff, in order to deal with the rude drunken customers, also began using colorful language. This spicy language has become almost as much of a draw as the authentic Chicago style char-dogs. The food at the Circle is awesome but the atmosphere after 1am is not for the faint of heart. The aggressive language may cause some to lose their faith in humanity.

Tell us about a hometown favorite with a reputation for “colorful language spoken here.”