Hot Doug’s
At Hot Doug’s Sohn, a graduate of Kendall College’s culinary school and a onetime caterer, had elevated the humble tube steak to a cuisine if not quite haute at least respectable. He offered Polishes, brats, Thuringers, andouille, and Chicago-style dogs, dressed and cooked to customer preference–whether char-grilled, deep-fried, steamed, or fried then grilled. He featured daily gourmet specials and a “game of the week” sausage–gator, boar, rattlesnake, rabbit, duck, or kangaroo. Fridays and Saturdays fresh-cut fries were cooked in duck fat, and the only request Sohn would refuse was to smother them in cheese sauce. Despite the store’s daytime-only hours, loyal customers from the neighborhood and nearby Lane Tech packed the awkward space every day and drivers desperately frittered away their lunch hours looking for precious parking.
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After the fire, Sohn says, he was ready to hang it up. He spent several months kicking back–reading, going to movies, traveling a bit. But steady inquiries caused him to rethink retirement. “Part of it was just the sheer number of people who would e-mail, call, or literally stop me on the street,” he says. “It was unbelievably flattering and heartwarming. And I couldn’t really think of anything else to do.” He planned to reopen in his old space last August, but the landlord dawdled on repairs and Sohn began scouting for a new location. One afternoon he and his brother stopped for a soda at Papa George’s–the beef stand at the corner of Roscoe and California. The owner, George Valkanas, overheard Sohn explaining his search to another customer. Valkanas, who’d been wanting out of the restaurant business, pitched the space, and he and Sohn inked a deal.
620 N. State
35 W. Ontario
