The Chicago Diner Has Been Here Forty Years. There's a Reason for That.

The Chicago Diner is vegan food with a full opt-out option. Real dairy cheese available. Real eggs on the breakfast and brunch menu if you want them. The kitchen doesn't ask you to commit to a lifestyle to eat here, which is the correct call and a lesson some ideologically committed restaurants could stand to learn.

The Reuben is the thing. It is large. Aggressively, almost confrontationally large. I ate half and felt reasonable about it. Share it or don't, but know what you're signing up for. The chicken fried steak lands too: good texture, satisfying in the way diner food is supposed to be satisfying, no apology required. The potato skins and sweet potato fries are competently fried, crispy where they should be. Both needed salt, which given founder Mickey Hornick's documented dietary philosophy I'll choose to find charming rather than frustrating.

The milkshakes are the move. Fully decadent, topped with whipped cream, and you will not miss the dairy. The bar is full and the non-alcoholic options are equally considered, which is how it should work everywhere and doesn't.

The room is loud and comfortable. It doesn't try to be more than it is. Neither does the menu. Both are better for it.

And then there's the history, which the food alone almost justifies ignoring. Mickey Hornick opened this place on Halsted in 1983 when Boystown was still becoming what it would be, and the diner became part of the infrastructure of that becoming. It was an original founder of the North Halstead Market Days which has since grown to a 330,000 celebration of the community. This alone makes it an institution.