Kevin Baum

A place like Diner Grill, 1635 West Irving Park, makes you appreciate the city of Chicago and all she gives us in this time of iPods, cell phones and email. Surrounded daily by so many things that are ever-changing, it's refreshing to walk in, sit down at one of the twelve stools the food counter offers and ingest the smell of an attitude that refuses to succumb to financially motivated ramifications. And there are smells of bacon, burgers and fresh coffee, too.

Everyone here knows each other...everyone. Or at the least, they know Ricardo Hernandez, the diner's manager-cook-resident-bad-ass. "I've been working here for seven years," Hernandez says, having to think about it for a moment. "And this place is owned by the same owner as Arnold's [at Irving and Broadway]. It's been passed down through his family."

An actual streetcar, Diner Grill has been anchored at its depot for seventy years and offers a refined list of breakfast foods, pork-chop combinations, burgers and fries. And...the infamous "Slinger." If you don't know what a Slinger is, come and feed your hungry eyes upon the make-shift sign on the wall: "Don't Ask--Just Eat...$7.50." Seriously--if you finish one you get a certificate of proof.

"I've been coming here for over thirty years," says Bill Strickland, Chicago native, atop groans in lieu of NCAA action broadcasting from the diner's thirteen-inch TV. "My dad used to take me here when I was a kid--they used to have these little franks...and beans." He's shoveling a Slinger--it includes eggs, hash browns, burger patties, cheese and chili--with ease.

Bacon cackles on the flat grill, four feet from your seat; eggs quickly "Go-Go-Gadget" into Denver omelets. The double cheeseburger is phenomenal.

To the right, a gentleman opts for simplicity. "I come here about once a week--or bi-weekly," Paul McDonald says, a Chicago resident who lives not too far down the street. "I get bacon, scrambled eggs and coffee. It's cheap and fast."

But don't think that because breakfast is a specialty here that operating hours are pre-dusk only. They keep it cooking `round the clock.

"Our busiest times are nights and all through the weekend," Hernandez says. He pauses for a smile. "At night, most of the people who come here are drunk."

(2007-04-03)

Also by Kevin Baum

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Upon entering McCormick Place's Lakeside Center Ballroom on the 2007 Chicago Auto Show's opening day, it's only natural to wonder where Chrysler has stashed the 2,000 or so people they counted on participating in their attempt to break the Guinness World Record for most people involved in a "Simon Says" game
(2007-02-13)

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