2601 Navy BoulevardI played a lot of sports growing up. Mostly baseball and then basketball for my school. My parents rarely missed a game. My dad would work extra shifts on non-game nights then use his vacation days on game days if he couldn’t get there after working his factory shift. I do a lot of the same with my kids now. All of my vacation days this year have gone to sports. But it was because my parents were always there for my games and I knew how much that meant to me.
My dad stopped working about 20 years ago due to a medical condition. My mom, pushing 70 is still working two jobs. Not because she has to but because she can’t just sit at home. She works in the service industry and needs that social interaction.
I moved away from my hometown right out of college. I ended up in Peoria, IL for about five years. It was only 90 minutes away from home so I was home a lot more often.
I met J there and after a few months of dating, she got a job in Lansing. I moved with her and we’ve been in Michigan ever since. 15 years now.
We don’t see my parents as much as I’d like to. We don’t go to my hometown much. My mom is usually working weekends and there are no hotels close. My brother and my’s childhood bedrooms aren’t big enough or set up for the four of us.
My parents still put in a helluva an effort to see their grand kids. They’ll take daytrips up here to watch them play sports. My brother still lives about five miles from them and his girls go the same school he and I did so my parents get to see them play sports almost every night. They feel like it’s not fair to our kids that they don’t get to see them play even though we live almost three hours away.
My mom and dad have traveled many times to watch L (and now B) figure skate. They went to Evanston, IL for synchro last winter. They came up at the beginning of the season to watch L skate in East Lansing. They took a day trip to Pleasant Prairie, WI to watch her skate there. They came to Kalamazoo in July for our competition.
At the competition in Wisconsin, there was a lot of talk about “Nationals.” L had a pretty good score there and it got her into the Top 6 in her individual competition. That didn’t hold up to the end of the year but she still qualified for Solo Dance Finals in her shadow event.
We told my parents that Nationals were going to be in Chicago. We didn’t know exactly where but they said as soon as we find out when and where to let them know. My mom was going to take the day off to watch L skate.
That skate ended up being on a Friday morning at the Glenview Community Ice Center in Glenview, IL north of Chicago. She didn’t skate until 11:30, so my parents got up Friday morning and made the trip up I-294 to watch her.
She and her partner finished fifth in their event….just missing the podium. Once she got done and we took lots of pictures with her partner and her coach, my mom asked about lunch. They wanted to eat and get back on the road before Friday afternoon rush hour.
L didn’t want to leave the rink and J just wanted to grab something quick and come back. My parents didn’t care but since I had them there, I thought sitting down for lunch would be better. I hate the idea of just grabbing lunch and shoving them off since they made the effort to come watch her.
There are a lot of options around the ice rink to eat. It’s Chicago. There’s food everywhere. I had a couple ideas for a sit down place and I wanted some place safe. I like trying local and finding hidden gems but my parents can be creatures of habit so chains are a safer bet. I can end up making us both happy by finding chain restaurants that we don’t have around here.
I picked Chuck Lager’s American Tavern in The Glen Town Center. The restaurant is on the corner of Patriot Boulevard and Navy Boulevard across from Gallery Park in Glenview. This is a really interesting development. The Glen Town Center is a 12,000 acre master planned community on the site of the former Glenview Naval Air Station. The development has everything a downtown commercial district would have. There’s living options, a ton of shopping, and a wide variety of food on the redeveloped land. The airstrips were all removed but the air control tower remains part of the landscape.
Chuck Lager’s American Tavern takes up a large corner development on the east side of the center. There are some angled street parking sites all around the development and we were lucky enough to find one of those about a block away.
I had never heard of Chuck Lager’s before looking for a place to eat on this trip. They are a small chain of 8 restaurants with a menu put together by celebrity chef Fabio Viviani…who appeared on a few versions of Top Chef before hitting the talk show circuit. The name Chuck Lager is pretty generic. They make “him” out to be something like “The Most Interesting Man in the World.” It’s all kind of aura they try to create with a fictional person.
The restaurant in Glenview is pretty large. We stopped in around lunch time on a Friday. There were some people sitting outside and that was offered to us but we were all in longsleeves and pants since we were sitting at an ice rink all day. Sitting outside would be too warm.
Instead, we were shown to a booth near the bar area.
The decor is interesting. It’s pretty generic, modern, upscale chain restaurant but they have motorcycles displayed for what I can only assume are “manly” reasons.
I’m a Pepsi guy and will always choose Pepsi over Coke. However, I get that most restaurants are Coke. My parents, will not choose Coke. They asked which it was and when the server said Coke, they both just stuck with water.
I did what I usually do at dinner and chose a beer. Chuck Lager’s has a couple of their own brews. I chose the Rocky Descent IPA. The beer was a little flat but I powered through. It wasn’t the best IPA I’ve ever had but it was cold and refreshing.
The menu is pretty big and has some good options. I passed on the burger and ordered The Italian Cubano. This sandwich is roasted Italian pulled pork, ham, spicy giardiniera, Provolone, pickles, and mustard on pressed Cuban bread. This sandwich was massive and it was sooo good. I love the addition of giardiniera to any sandwich but adding it to a Cuban takes the sandwich from a 10 to an 11. Whenever I order something other than a burger, I always wonder if I’m going to regret it. I did not regret this. The sandwich came with chips but I added on the Truffle Fries. These were thick cut potatoes with truffle sauce and Parmesan cheese. There were a lot of them on the plate. I don’t say this often but there was almost too much food.
My dad kept it pretty simple ordering the spaghetti and meatballs. I wish I would have taken a picture. This was a giant plate of Pomodoro with three huge meatballs. My dad isn’t usually impressed with the places I picked but he made sure to mention twice how good this plate was.
My mom picked the Asian Shrimp Street Tacos. There was a lunch special where I think she got two (again, didn’t snap a picture). The flour tortillas had grilled marinated shrimp, street corn, pickled red onion, cusabi, teriyaki, lime, and cilantro. She finished her plate off as well. Both my parents were highly impressed with this place which is the highest of compliments.
Chuck Lager’s American Tavern is pretty on par with some of the newer higher end chain restaurants. The food we had was all really good. The beer was…meh…but that’s fine. I’m still a guy that thrives on finding those local gems and probably wouldn’t have went to this place on my own, but I know my parents and I know what they like. This was a good happy medium for all of us.