What's the last place you went to eat before...

...all the bars and restaurants closed down?

This is a companion topic to the one Ronnie created, about the first place you'll go when everything opens up again.

I hope this topic creates the opportunity for folks to share happy memories of their last meal out before everything shut down. Maybe some heard Governor Pritzker's announcement on Sunday March 15, that all bars and restaurants would close at the end of the following day, and took one last shot at one of their favorites. Or maybe others, like me, just happened to luck out with a terrific meal before his announcement.

We had gone to Louisville for a four-day cluster of dog shows March 12-15. We have always enjoyed wonderful food in Louisville; it's a great dining city for its size. On March 12 we had an excellent dinner of tom kha gai, panang gai (shown), shrimp pad thai, and mango sticky rice, at Thai Noodles.


On Friday March 13 I had a wonderful breakfast of Candy'd bacon and sub zero cakes - blueberry pancakes with lemon mascarpone sauce between each layer - at Superchefs.


We had a dinner reservation that evening at Brendon's Catch 23 in downtown Louisville. At the end of that day, they announced that the remaining two days of dog shows were cancelled by order of the governor (the facility is state-owned), so we knew we would be driving home the following day. But we kept our Friday dinner reservation, thinking that a nice dinner would somewhat offset the disappointment of not completing the dog shows - not realizing at the time that this would be our last meal out for months. Fortunately, dinner at Brendon's was simply outstanding.

Warm jar of king crab and butter with grilled sourdough

Cornbread muffins with honey butter

Seared Chilean sea bass (the portion was huge, can't tell from this photo) sweet potato-corn hash, smoked bacon, "liquid corn on the cob"

Seared yellowfin tuna, char crust seasoning, roasted Yukon potatoes, asparagus, bearnaise sauce

Brendon's classic hushpuppies made with Kentucky Wiesenberger Mills cornmeal. Fried and served with housemade redeye remoulade

A warm butter cake - butter cake with caramelized cream cheese, housemade bourbon ice cream, fresh berries, and strawberry sauce

It's indeed a fond memory, and I'm glad we took that last opportunity to have a nice dinner out. Let's hope we all make it through this so we can create more such memories on the flipside.

Anybody else have one last meal out they would like to remember?

Friday 3/13: The Whistler for happy hour and then this meal at JMC Szechwan Kitchen for dinner. And even then, Chinatown was pretty much already a ghost town.

=R=

I ate at Peppercorns Kitchen in Evanston. As usual, I ordered way more than I can eat in one sitting as I wanted to take home leftovers.

What surprised me was they had a Eggplant+Tofu dish on the vegetarian menu. I say this because they didn't have it when I went before. I asked the waitress to find out if the Chef could make one for me. She brought it out and commented the dish looked and smelled great and maybe she should ask the chef to make her one too!

Lo and behold; I go back and it's actually a menu item!!

A day before everything closed down; I was on Devon. Annapurna has now moved to the bigger Patel Cafe on the corner. The menu is the same but now they have Indian Ice creams (kulfi). This makes me really happy to know I can get Sitafal (Cherimoya), Chikoo (Sapota) etc.

El Pollo Loco.

The location is right near where I needed to drop off the rental car ... and then I drove home on March 24th and have not left since.

Marie's on St. Patty's Day. Sausage and anchovy pizza with a Miller High Life.

Fake answer: Al Bawadi Grill (original Bridgeview location) -- posted a comparison in the Al Bawadi Niles thread.

Actual answer: International House of Pangolin

The last place I ate was Lefty's Pizza Kitchen in Wilmette on March 4th. I watched my brothers and nephew eat a large deep dish with sausage that looked and smelled amazing as I ate a very tasty chicken caesar salad. I started a low carb diet on February 25th and amazingly in spite of them having cheese curds (which are really good there) and the pizza, I was not suffering. I ate a few sausage chunks from the pizza that were really great. I've been cooking all my meals and eating at home almost entirely the last month and a half.

cilantro wrote:Actual answer: International House of Pangolin

Lol. I thought it was determined that it wasn't "artichoke of the woods" to blame.

Last sit down restaurant meal for me was at Double Happiness on Argyle on 3/12 for Titus's favorite "dry" noodle soup. Aside from the apocalyptic convo my lunch date & I were having, you would not have guessed anything was amiss.

Bonta in Lincolnshire for lunch on Sat 3/14 to see my friend Nunzio before we all went into the ice age.

Had a great tuna panini and homemade minestrone. Sat with Nunzio shooting the bull, sipping a caffe & pistachio cookie, projecting the changes afoot and bolstering each other's spirits. These restaurant owners are something else.

For the hour we sat, nobody else came in the door.

Indianbadger wrote:I ate at Peppercorns Kitchen in Evanston. As usual, I ordered way more than I can eat in one sitting as I wanted to take home leftovers.

What surprised me was they had a Eggplant+Tofu dish on the vegetarian menu. I say this because they didn't have it when I went before. I asked the waitress to find out if the Chef could make one for me. She brought it out and commented the dish looked and smelled great and maybe she should ask the chef to make her one too!

Lo and behold; I go back and it's actually a menu item!!

A day before everything closed down; I was on Devon. Annapurna has now moved to the bigger Patel Cafe on the corner. The menu is the same but now they have Indian Ice creams (kulfi). This makes me really happy to know I can get Sitafal (Cherimoya), Chikoo (Sapota) etc.

We order the eggplant with tofu every time we order delivery from there, so it’s always been in the delivery menu.

Hi,

A friend and I went grocery shopping in Chicago. I bought 10 boxes of raspberry filled Pim cookies for the duration. I still have five boxes to cover us.

On the way home, I went to Jim's Original for two Polish sausages and a pork chop sandwich with peppers on the side. When we road trip, Jim's is often part of the ritual of leaving and returning.

Three weeks sheltering at home, I would love to go somewhere without a legal purpose.

Regards,
CAthy2

Katie's Kitchen in Des Plaines the morning before the order took place. I had the breakfast crepes, SueF had Eggs Benedict. Enough food leftover for the next days' breakfast.

Solo JMC Kitchen stock-up lunch on Thursday, March 12th...was also my last trip into the city until yesterday when I did a large takeout from Rainbow and Anteprima. If someone with access wants to turn these around, that would be awesome. No idea how to do it...


Maw


Eggplant


Fish Soup

The last place I went to eat was the Vienna Beef store on Damen and Fullerton on March 16th. That was the last day the store was open to the public.

CSD

Kamehachi on Wells. I remember it so clearly (and I bet others remember their places for the same reason) because one week later, we were thinking back in amazement, saying, "Can you believe that one week ago we were still going to restaurants?"

Dolo for dim sum

El Ideas. Wine-collecting friends did a buyout. The governor's orders hadn't gone into effect yet, but it already felt strange being out, and the entire group was attentive to not hugging, shaking hands, etc. It was also clear that the restaurant community was going to be tremendously hurt, yet the El team was still so hospitable and attentive to the guests. This will be one of the first restaurants I will want to return to when the city reopens

I went to LTH with some friends on February 29. I remember the date because it was their wedding anniversary.

Great idea for a thread...Took my youngest daughter for a quick dinner after Hebrew School at Max's Deli in Highland Park on Wednesday, March 11. I had a bowl of the soup of the day (vegetable beef) and a half roast beef sandwich on rye and my daughter had chicken noodle soup. Amazing I can remember the exact order a month later. Had plans to watch Michigan Basketball in the Big 10 Tournament for lunch at Ravinia Brewing the next day and well...

Got a burrito from my local taqueria, Mr Salsa, on March 15th.

Due Lire in Lincoln Square, a long-time favorite.

Gotta love of the google timeline functionality. Hey if they're gonna track me, at least I can get some use out of it too....

Took a quick detour to Cafe Marie Jeanne on Sunday 3/14 knowing we probably would be quarantining soon. Geez that feels like years ago.

Can't wait to head back again once we can!

Sun Wah for Steve Z memorial Birthday dinner. Hey when your running 3 joints you don't get out much but man that last meal out will be hard to beat! Company was even better.

Also El Ideas on their last night open. Full house, but everyone did a good job distancing. Staff was as great as ever, but obviously cognizant of the situation we were all facing. We considered cancelling, but really wanted to support such a special place in such a trying time, and knew that there was a lot of room for the <20 people who would be there.

It was a wonderful meal. I've been there a few times recently and while I hold a number of restaurants close to my heart, I'm really not sure there's anything as special as Chef Foss' food in that little space. I'm so happy I was able to go when I did. I cannot wait to go back.

jhawk1 wrote:Sun Wah for Steve Z memorial Birthday dinner. Hey when your running 3 joints you don't get out much but man that last meal out will be hard to beat! Company was even better.

That was a great night!

I guess my last meal at a restaurant before the lockdown was a pepper & egg sandwich at Rosa's in Chicago Ridge. It's my team's home bar for our Wednesday night dart league and usually I order a small thin crust pizza with sausage & giardiniera but I decided to branch out this time.



It was a pretty good pepper & egg. I like their pizza too. I hope to get back there soon.

Last time for me was the LTH North(/Evanston) lunch group meeting at Bluegrass in Highland Park. I remember that both the food and conversation were great; I remember saying, y'know, this might be the last time we get to meet in person for a while, and no one seemed to believe me; and I remember that I talked to the owner Jim for a while before I left and asked him how business was, and said, knock on wood, I hoped they could stay open, and he said he hoped so too; so far, so good. That was, what? less than a week, I think, before the Illinois shutdown began.

Katie wrote:Last time for me was the LTH North(/Evanston) lunch group meeting at Bluegrass in Highland Park. I remember that both the food and conversation were great; I remember saying, y'know, this might be the last time we get to meet in person for a while, and no one seemed to believe me; and I remember that I talked to the owner Jim for a while before I left and asked him how business was, and said, knock on wood, I hoped they could stay open, and he said he hoped so too; so far, so good. That was, what? less than a week, I think, before the Illinois shutdown began.

FYI - they’re open for curbside pickup and delivery.

I was just thinking about that.

Fiery Crab in Kenner, Louisiana. Friday, March 13th.

In hindsight, the timing was awful. It's been speculated that a lot of CV was spread during the NOLA Mardi Gras blowout (Feb 25) this year. My travel companions and I arrived about two weeks later and did all the usual tourist things for a week: WW2 museum, aquarium, Cafe du Monde, muffalettas, Algiers ferry, strolling crowded Bourbon Street day and night, streetcar rides, Pontchartrain boat casino, all of it. Lots of things to touch and breathe and strangers to interact with. We went to Fiery Crab the last night we were in town. So far, we're all ok.

Was fortunate to dine at Kyoten a few days before the shelter-in-place order was mandated.