Berghoff Closes Its Doors

By Erin in Food on Dec 29, 2005 1:32PM

After 107 years, the venerable Berghoff Restaurant is closing its doors.

The Berghoff, one of the city's oldest restaurants and a downtown mainstay since Prohibition first forced it to become a full-service operation, will serve its last Sauerbraten on Feb. 28. Owner Herman Berghoff and his wife, Jan, are looking to retire and turn the building over to their daughter, Carlyn Berghoff, who runs a local catering business called Artistic Events by Carlyn Berghoff Catering Inc.

According to Crain's, "The Berghoff Café at O’Hare International Airport will remain open and Berghoff brand beer will continue to be sold; Joseph Huber Brewery of Monroe, Wisc., makes the beer."

As our friends at the Trib so wisely noted today, "First Marshall Field's, now The Berghoff." While the situation with Berghoff certainly isn't the same as the one with Field's, Chicagoist can't help but mourn the loss of yet another icon of local commerce. Maybe it's just our end-of-the-year blues talking, but somehow these days it feels as though we're one strip mall away from becoming Schaumburg.

More on the closing here at the Sun-Times and photo gallery at the Trib.

Image courtesy of Devyn Caldwell