Barstool Chicago Small Business Feature - The Palace Grill With Chief and Dante
A couple weeks ago Chief and I got the opportunity to visit George Lemperis, owner of the Palace Grill located on Madison Street, a couple of blocks away from The United Center and the Official restaurant of the Chicago Blackhawks. If you're from Chicago, or play hockey in Illinois, or both, you no doubt know about Palace Grill.
Like the rest of the places we've covered in this series, Palace Grill is a Chicago institution, and George has been it's face forever.
Getting the chance to sit down and listen to him tell stories about growing up a Hawks fan during the Hull and Espo days, "going into business" with his father, getting to meet his heroes, become best friends with them, and become friends and even a father figure to future generations of Hawks players and team personnel was a dream come true for Chief.
The restaurant is like a time capsule meets Blackhawks hall of fame meets "who's who" of Chicago. And not just on the walls but dining each and every day at George's countertop or at one of his many socially distanced tables. No joke, when Chief and I walked inside we bumped into Jim Boylen who was graciously shaking George's hand and shooting the breeze.
As we noted in our conversation, we were "interrupted" countless times by guests and friends of George coming over to say hi and shake hands. The guy knows everybody. And has stories for days.
George and The Palace Grill are what makes Chicago Chicago. We simply cannot afford to lose places like this so continue to support small businesses like George's with your wallet and word of mouth.
Pro tip- you cannot go wrong with one of their steak omelets. I think I saw 30 of them go out in the 20 minutes we were at the counter. As mentioned in the video their English muffins are lights out as well.
Ways you can help:
1- Pay Palace Grill a visit. They're located at 1408 W Madison St, Chicago, IL 60607.
2- Order take out. As you'll see in the video, their portions are huge and the food is phenomenal.
3- Follow them on social media and spread the word for them.
Small businesses are taking a beating right now. And it's not just the owners. It's the front and back of house staffs, the purveyors and vendors they do business with, and the family members of all they all employ. Help out as much as you can so we ensure our favorite places will still be around when this nightmare is over.
Also help support The Barstool Fund which is literally doing more for small businesses than anybody, the government included, in the entire country.
Hopefully, you all enjoy this as much as we enjoyed making it. If so we'll have more rolling out in the next couple weeks. If you have any ideas for other small businesses we could cover please shoot them over - dantebarstool@gmail.com
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s/o to Chief's buddy Harry on doing a great job on the video