The Best Restaurant Value in Chicago?

Do you remember the last time you paid less than $100 (tip and fees included) for a multi-course meal for two people in a full-service restaurant and left happy?

If you’re like me and you have a family of four including two very active teenage boys, I bet you haven’t made it out of the McDonald’s drive-thru for under $40 this year.

Pandemic, inflation, living wage needs, etc. have fundamentally changed the cost of dining out.

A lot of hedge fund traders will tell you that the Fed’s recent interest rate cut is gonna fix everything, but the only thing it’ll do is create the conditions that lead to bigger summer homes for them in the Hamptons.

For the rest of us, the good old days of dining on the relatively cheap are gone like Pete Rose, Shannon Doherty, and James Earl Jones (R.I.P.).

Or are they?

Last week, the unthinkable happened. I paid $67 total for five courses at a restaurant and my wife and I walked out happy and stuffed.

We were going to see the band Soul Coughing at The Riviera and hadn’t made dinner plans. No intention of being anywhere for a couple hours I was ambling around the house in my limited-edition fuzzy Grimace Crocs. I negotiated hard with my heart while staring at a can of Spaghetti-Os and a tub of marshmallow fluff in my pantry, but I realized this would not do.

The pride of my shoe stash.

I kicked the Crocs across the room like I was launching a SpaceX capsule and told my wife it was time to lose the sweatpants and find some real food.