Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Chicago: Billy Goat Inn








We never seem to keep up with BurgerBlogger and BurgerHoover:


Burgerhoover and I took a culinary/djing trip our to Chicago. We shared a burger at amongst the hotdogs, Italian sandwiches, pizza, Pierogis and other Polish delights. The place for the burger was The Billy Goat Tavern, where Saturday night live filmed a bit with John Belushi.

The quote from their website is pretty much describes the positioning of this Tavern; "Ordering at the Billy Goat may go something like this: "Cheezborger! Cheezborger! You want doublecheez?!? Who's next!?! WHO'S NEXT!?!" If you take more than one second to answer: "Don't look at the menu, look at ME! I order for you - DOUBLECHEEZ!" If you only feel like a single: No. DOUBLECHEEZ!!!" If it's the end of the week: "It's Friday, doublecheez for everybody! It's payday! Triplecheez for the big guy!" Want French fries with that? "No fries - CHEEPS!" Thirsty? "No Pepsi - COKE!" To drink: "Coke or Diet?!" "

And that's how it went, we walked in and guy greeted us by saying, "You eating here?. Sit on that side. order the Doublecheez." We ordered and the burger was plain and dry. two meat patties with cheeze on a bun. We hooked up the condiments and went to town on it... A bit later the fellow that greeted us came by to ask where we were from..... We were being serious tourist taking pictures and reading everything on the walls..... Then the fellow came back with two souvenir kitchen hats for us and took our picture to add to the dork folder.

Back to the burger..... it's plain, to the point, does the job of nourishing you and you leave with a full belly, but more importantly you leave with another experience that will bring happiness when recalled. Specially if you have a couple steins of the dark beer.

Big up the billy goat massive...



Billy Goat Tavern Original
Near Tribune Towers and Wrigley Building
430 N. Michigan Ave at Lower Level
Phone: 312-222-1525

3 comments:

John Petty said...

Best Burger in Chicago!
Every year when we go to Chicago for the weekend and hit a Cubbies game, we go "underground" for a Double, chips and the Dark Schlitz Beer on tap.
Plus the home made pickles are awesome.
Sometimes going back to the basics is good.

Charlie Hills said...

I don't remember this story, since I was only three at the time, but I actually met Billy Sianis. It was one of my dad's favorite stories about me. Billy, of course, had the painting of himself on the wall, complete with the full billy goat beard and billy goat horns. When introduced, I looked slowly at him, then the painting, then back at him, and without warning: I head-butted him.

If I could build a time machine, this would be one of my top five stops.

Anonymous said...

When I visited Chicago from Portland, OR I was told I had to go visit Billy Goats on the Pier. Presidents had eaten there and the food was supposedly pretty good. I was extremely disappointed, there was nothing special about the burger and the variety in condiments was attrocious. I also was disappointed they had chip instead of fries but there are worse things in the world. I will never go back or reccomend it to anyone.