Day 7: Lincoln Park

I truly had the best intentions of going out to lunch in Hyde Park yesterday, but then, completely out of nowhere, I didn't. But, to make it up to you, I ate twice as much today! That is because today's neighborhood was Lincoln Park, home of the first restaurant in the "Lettuce Entertain You" franchise, R.J. Grunt's.

Lincoln Park is located on the north side of Chicago, and is famous for its many boutiques, restaurants, coffee shops, and for containing the most expensive block in Chicago. You may have heard of Lincoln Park because of the large stretch of land that is dedicated to caging animals. But enough about the Chicago Public Schools, there is also a zoo!


To get to R.J. Grunt's I took two buses. The first was the good ol' number 8 bus heading north. I got off at Armitage, and then took the number 73 bus heading east until I reached Lincoln Park West. I say that like I did not get off at the Armitage stop, decide I was more clever than a bus, and walk west wondering when I would hit the correct street. I finally realized I had gone the wrong way when I found myself wading into the Mississippi River. Eventually, I conceded to taking the bus and reached the correct stop. From there I walked about a block or so down Lincoln Park West until I hit R.J. Grunt's at 2056 Lincoln Park West:

R.J. Grunt's has taken the place of both Disney World and the back of the math team bus as "The Happiest Place on Earth." Although, I wouldn't say no to a pool full of pudding... The first thing you see when you walk in the restaurant is the weird paintings of cowboy boots and hundreds of black-and-white photographs:


All of the people in the pictures are people who have worked at R.J. Grunt's at some point in the restaurant's 38 year history. One woman has actually worked at R.J. Grunt's for 25 of those years. She's actually pictured right below these four women, and she would be in the picture, but there was a giant mass of red hair blocking my view of her. Good thing redheads are going extinct. The cowboy boot represents the long and lonesome journey that R.J. Grunt's endured to get to where it is today. Just kidding! It's just a cowboy boot.

Even the menu is awsesome. This is the cover:


The website is fairly awesome as well. As the site loads, the "eel of approval" tells you what is loading: "Huge voluptuous burgers... salad bar stuff... the letter 'R'... RJ's mustache... the letter 'J'... more salad bar stuff..." There's even a place where you can enter your email address and receive "free junk mail!"

But none of this compares with the food. It is a true Lettuce Entertain You creation because it feeds you until you need to unbutton your pants. Some of the highlights of the menu include temperature soup, which costs less as the temperature goes down. For example, when it is 70 degrees, the soup costs 70 cents. When it is 4 degrees, the soup costs four cents.

The reason I love R.J. Grunt's is because of the salad bar. This thing is massive! Or maybe it just looks massive because of the mirror overhead:


Yeah, the mirror is definitely a marketing ploy. But anyway the salad bar is fantastic. Not only do they have icky stuff like fruits vegetables, but they also have delicious stuff like pasta salad and this fantastic cream cheese and chocolate chip thing:


Our waiter introduced me to spreading it on graham crackers, which earned him a large tip. In addition to the unlimited salad bar, you also get unlimited soup. Our waiter also told us that this was one of the first salad bars in Chicago.

I ordered the salad bar (which, makes me sound healthy, even though I ordered it so I could have a bowl full of the chocolate chip cream cheese), but Liz, Caroline, and Erica, because they are sheeple, all ordered the same thing: the Gruntburger. And, because they are pigs, they snarfed the burgers down before I could get a picture in. So this is an artist's representation of what the plates might have looked like:


Except that Gruntburgers are served with chips and a pickle.

In addition, the lemmings all ordered milkshakes, but not the type that bring the boys to the yard. We also ordered two appetizers. The first was a tower of onion rings:


And the second was a plate of "Buffalo Chicken Turbo Nachos." And boy, were they turbo:


By the end of the night I was very stuffed, so I was happy. I do not know for sure what our total bill was, but it was probably something like $75 for four people. Not too shabby considering how much food we got.

Tomorrow, if things go according to plan, I will be going out for Italian food (or at least pizza and Italian ice) on Taylor street. Until next time, happy eating!