Janson’s Drive-In

Here’s another great road sign from our trip to Chicago in May:

And a bonus photo of one of their great menu boards:

Maybe someday (next year, perhaps?), we’ll stop and have a meal there!

Fox’s Beverly

This has been a good summer for photographing vintage road signs, and the Beverly neighborhood of Chicago was an especially good location to find a bunch of them, starting with Fox’s Pizza:

Zehnder’s Restaurant

In honor of National Fried Chicken Day, I thought I’d share a related vintage road sign from last month’s trip to Michigan. Zehnder’s is one of two restaurants in Frankenmuth famous for fried chicken dinners, and while it’s not the restaurant we ate at while we were there, I did love its sign!

Scenes from Chicago

Just a look around at some of the people and places we saw in Chicago in May:

Throwback (Chickadee) Thursday

Today’s Chickadee Thursday post had me thinking back to the only other time Chickadee Thursday fell on the Fourth of July, six years ago…what a quick six years it has been!

Chickadee Thursday

Happy Fourth of July!

Wordless Wednesday

Tasty Tuesday–Beast Craft BBQ: #beercheesesteak

Last month when we went to the new Beast Craft BBQ location in St. Louis, Beast Butcher and Block, I was excited to see the #beercheesesteak on the menu, because it’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time! Aren’t I lucky that it’s something that has now shown up at both locations?

So here’s the deal. Chopped brisket (which of course, I already knew I loved), tallow, beer cheese, and onions. On that amazing bread Beast uses. And I got some of Beast’s delicious fries to go with it. Perfect dinner. Melt-in-your-mouth perfection. And I didn’t really understand how tasty tallow is before Beast. Actually, I’m not sure I’ve really ever had tallow prior to Beast!

Every time I try something new at Beast (no matter the location…I love that I can say that now!), I figure that’s it, there’s just no way they can top that. They always do, though, and I am constantly waiting to see what they come up with next! And now that they’re on both sides of the river, if you’re in the St. Louis metro, you have no excuse not to taste just what that might be for yourself!

The Bronze Cow

I remember well the “Cows on Parade” public art display that hit Chicago two decades ago. I only saw a few of them at the time (and a few more since), but perhaps the interest in public art displays/scavenger hunts that flamed in me during the STL250 Cakeway to the West installation year began as a spark back then. I didn’t know until our most recent visit to Chicago, however, that a bronze cow in on display outside the Chicago Cultural Center to commemorate the event (and now I’m thinking St. Louis needs a bronze cake, but I digress).

If you look into its eyes, you will see the Chicago Picasso sculpture in one, and the historic Chicago water tower (the only public building to survive in the burn zone of the Great Chicago Fire), in the other. And don’t think that the irony of a herd of cows taking over Chicago, a city fabled to have burned because a cow kicked over a lantern, is lost on me!

Chicago Cultural Center

I’m always trying to find new things to do when we visit Chicago, so when we were up there last month, I decided we should visit the Chicago Cultural Center, located at 78 East Washington Street (which is also the corner of Washington and North Michigan Avenue):