March 29, 2024

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Gaslight Club – Chicago: A Throwback From the Roaring 20s Lives On

Not to be perplexed with Gaslight on Racine, the Gaslight Club situated in the O’Hare Hilton is the final of the primary 20s-period speakeasies that motivated the outdated Playboy Golf equipment. The waitstaff is made up of pretty and charming can-can ladies dressed in corsets, tassels and fishnet stockings. The Gaslight Club’s extends past even that, attracting additional of a transient business clientele with few regulars coming from the city or suburbs. Gaslight was open up to vital-keeping customers until 2001 and is now obtainable to everyone wanting a cocktail, steak or seafood dinner, and dwell piano amusement in a posh throwback placing.

The O’Hare Hilton is located throughout from Terminal Three, within just the confines of O’Hare Worldwide Airport. Site visitors either fly in, get the Blue Line “L” or park in the quick-term lot. The Gaslight Club is positioned at the northwest conclude of the lobby, to the ideal of the entrance desk. Serbian owner Ranko (Ray) Dabizljevic leases the house from the Hilton and advertises the costume code as “company attire,” a rarity these days.

To the still left of the framed Gaslight signal promising “Classy Dining & Enjoyment,” you can locate the maitre’ d stand down below a white statue of a female that appears to be like like she’s about to dive into h2o-possibly your wallet in its place… If you are dining, the hostess will guide you to your table down a narrow carpeted aisle with Victorian wallpaper and illuminated by Tiffany lamps. A modest area to your ideal functions a handful of lower-slung, 4-seater tables, across from a collection of tall, leather-based-upholstered wooden booths. Lesser, two-seater tables lie beneath faux bookcases alongside the jap wall.

Further than the dining location is the coronary heart & soul of the spot, The Longhorn Home: a square, two-tale space that is just massive plenty of to accommodate the huge crystal chandelier brought around from a castle in Europe. Several smallish, minimal-slung wood tables fill this room, looked on by huge, ornately framed Rubenesque nudes and a photo of Jimmy Durante smiling broadly and surrounded by the authentic Gaslight Club women. Nightly amusement facilities all over the piano identified halfway down the western wall. Although Dixieland Jazz was as soon as showcased, you’ll locate the regular piano bar cover tunes as an alternative like what you’d listen to at Redhead Piano Bar, Zebra Lounge or Davenport’s. Most likely it’s the gigantic chandelier overhead, but the piano appears to be a bit tiny, particularly with the loosely piled stack of tunes publications stacked on it. A portal below the massive “Longhorn Place” signal hanging on the japanese wall qualified prospects to the kitchen area, beyond which is a compact aisle for servers that is flanked by two elevated tables.

The bar is identified at the north finish of the home with an remarkable picket back again-bar framed by stately columns. The signature cocktail is the lemon fall. Somewhat than the pictures you could possibly have had at a place like the now-defunct Spike’s Rat Bar, this 1 arrives in martini form, built with Limoncello and a lemon wedge. A quite pedestrian beer record (no craft brews, thank you) has its counterpoint with a wonderful dessert range of ports, cognacs, one malt whiskey, and a handful of other delectable spirits. Nevertheless when served in ceramic mugs, all beverages are now served in their customary glassware.

The menu is certainly geared to these on an expenditure account. Signature steaks and chops operate $34-49, the top rated close of which is the Gaslight Steak (primary bone-in rib chop), and surf & turf goes for $60+ (filet mignon and lobster tail)-all of which are served à la carte (hope $6 for a baked potato). For all those seeking a phase down in price, the Hen Florentine and Wienerschnitzel are suggested. For dessert, the lemon mousse hits the place fairly nicely, nevertheless the chocolate mousse and Eli’s cheesecake are probable extra well known.

Of program, evening meal and drinks are served by welcoming, slender, properly-endowed, mainly Jap European Gaslight Ladies carrying minimal-minimize tops, frills covering their backsides, fishnets or nylons, and substantial-heels-very similar to a Playboy bunny outfit, minus the tail (immediately after all, it was this outfit that influenced the bunny outfit). Drinking water and bread (served on a slicing board) are dispensed by elegantly dressed busboys.

The to start with Gaslight Club opened on Oct 27, 1953 in Chicago’s Gold Coastline community, by Burton Browne-a Colonel Sanders appear-alike that sincerely felt he was a mountain lion in a former existence. The unique Gaslight Club was in this kind of higher need, that it experienced to move to a bigger space at 13 E. Huron (now a large-rise) that also highlighted the bar from the notorious Everleigh Club. A 2nd Chicago area was included at the Palmer Household (shut in 1988).

In 1956, the New York Club opened in a plush outdated mansion and featured Elizabeth Taylor as a Gaslight Woman, although filming scenes there for Butterfield 8, for which she received and Academy Award. The Washington DC club opened in 1959 and then Paris in 1961. Gaslight Club O’Hare opened in 1973. Right after Burton Browne passed on, board member Robert Fredricks ran the clubs until finally 1984 when very long-time Gaslight Club member Jim Roberts, Jr, took the reigns. At its height, the Gaslight Club boasted around 26,000 associates, just about every with a gold-plated key. Nonetheless, by the late 80s and early 90s, curiosity in users-only clubs appreciably declined and equally Gaslight and Playboy Golf equipment have been closed with expanding frequency. Until finally a new Playboy Club opened up just lately in Las Vegas, Gaslight Club O’Hare was the only a person of its variety to endure.

Right now, the Gaslight Club is viewed as an oddity, cherished by these few who know about it and relished on layovers. Even though either the locale and/or cost of the entrées scares off most Chicagoans and suburbanites, the Gaslight Club is a just one-of-a-sort primary and definitely value a check out. Just get to O’Hare an hour right before you have to have to be there, resist the urge to wedge by yourself into the very small, nondescript bar in the vicinity of your gate, and have a consume at the Gaslight Club bar as a substitute. Just make sure you never allow the Gaslight Ladies make you pass up your flight… For additional details, look at out the Gaslight Club site. Funds!