Openings

Maid-Rite Diner Coming To Lincoln Park

A cool closed Maid-Rite location in Macomb, Illinois, which presumably does not represent how one would look in Lincoln Park.
A cool closed Maid-Rite location in Macomb, Illinois, which presumably does not represent how one would look in Lincoln Park. Photo: Robert Lawton

There’s a certain class of early 20th century restaurant food we’ve always considered to belong to the Depression because it’s soft and easy to chew— suitable for a period when people didn’t always have the money to take care of their teeth. Russell’s Barbecue in Elmwood Park is one local example in Chicagoland, but probably the best known is the “loose meat” hamburgers best typified by Iowa’s Maid-Rite chain. Loose meat burgers are made with finely ground beef steamed with spices (and usually— this is the secret— some amount of organ meats), then served on a steamed bun with the usual hamburger toppings. We have some fondness for this style based on a local chain in our own hometown, so we are somewhat intrigued by a report at Eater yesterday that Maid-Rite plans to open its first Chicago location in Lincoln Park, on Lincoln near Fullerton. To us it’s a little like the ill-fated opening of a Leo’s Coney Island in Chicago, which overestimated the nostalgia factor for Detroit immigrants, but then again, maybe they know something about who’s likely to crave a Maid-Rite near DePaul on Friday night at 11 pm that we don’t. Incidentally, though a first Chicago location, it’s not the first in Illinois by any means, and in fact the Springfield location is supposed to have the nation’s first drive-through, dating back to the 1920s.

Maid-Rite Diner Coming To Lincoln Park