Not Your Typical Landmark

We've posted about the renovations at Chef Luciano's and Gourmet Chicken before, but yesterday we read an article on WBEZ's website about the process underway to make part of the building a landmark:

If the Chef Luciano & Gourmet Chicken place in the South Loop looks like a white castle, it's with good reason: The 80-year-old building was originally a White Castle, one of the earliest built by the world-famous restaurant chain.

And tomorrow, city staffers will seek preliminary landmark status for the building at 43 E. Cermak, saying the 80-year-old building is the city's best surviving example of an original White Castle restaurant. Built in 1930, the building, originally White Castle #16, was among scores of first-gen White Castle restaurants that made eating hamburgers acceptable--it was low-brow carny food before then--and created a construction and business model that paved the way for modern post-war franchise systems like McDonalds and others, according to a city report.

The city's landmarks division will make its case before the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

ABC7 also did a little piece about the process and sums up the story well:


(Hat tip: LR3 & RG!)