The Berghoff

The Berghoff is a famous old German restaurant in downtown Chicago. I've walked past it too many time to count, taken dozens of pictures of their sign, but only visited one half time. 

In 2006 many terrible things were happening in Chicago. Chicagoans went momentarily crazy and allowed Marshall Fields to disappear and The Berghoff to close. It was my senior year and I had made many many efforts to make a last visit to my beloved Fields and hadn't made it. When my aunts suggested they take my sister and I to Chicago to visit The Berghoff and Marshall Fields one last time I, of course, accepted. We made the trip in February 2006. As we trekked down Adams and got closer and closer to The Berghoff it took our notice that the famous sign was not lit up. We also noticed that the crowds which should have accompanied the last day of this historic restaurant were non existent. My aunts had gotten the date wrong and a lonely sign on the door told us were one day too late. 

The happy ending is that instead we dined at the Walnut Room and bought Christmas ornaments at Fields one last time before the unspeakable turn to Macy's. The Berghoff had an even happier ending and reopened, hardly two months after our visit.

And that my friends, is how I visited the Beghoff one half times.