This summer, Northwestern students celebrated the arrival of Five Guys Burgers and Fries on Church Street.
Although restaurants like Chipotle, Subway and Einstein Bros. line Chicago’s sidewalks, only in the past decade have these chains become familiar sights in Evanston. NU students used to frequent small, independent local eateries that are unfamiliar to today’s students, alumna Carlen Petersen (Speech ‘76) said.
Petersen said when she went to NU, Evanston had a few small clothing stores, one bookstore and some banks. The only national chain in Evanston when Petersen was at school was a three-story Marshall Field’s where Panera Bread now stands.
While students now crowd into seats at the Cinemark Century movie theater and browse through shops on Davis Street, Petersen said that side of town was a “wasteland” in her time.
A huge source of entertainment for students was missing in Petersen’s time - alcohol could not be purchased or served in Evanston until 1972, according to a 1973 Chicago Tribune article. Before the city lifted the liquor ban, restaurants like the diner-style Hub, The Spot and the sandwich shop The Big Pickle were popular, Petersen said, but there was no single hang-out for students.
In 1957, Howard Street became home to one of the first 50 McDonald’s in the country, according to the Chicago Tribune. An Arby’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Brown’s Chicken soon came to the city as well.
In 1976, Evanston nightlife changed forever. Burger King, which was one of the first national restaurants to open downtown, stayed open until 1 a.m., later than any other restaurant there at the time. Although it did not have a bouncer, the fast food restaurant was consistently “packed at lunchtime,” according to a 1976 issue of the Evanston Review.
Between 1982 and 1986, 22 fast food franchises applied for zoning permits in Evanston, according to the Chicago Tribune. Japanese language and history professor Phyllis Lyons, who has taught at NU since 1978, said the arrival of these new restaurants surprised her.
“I didn’t really notice how it was happening till one day I looked around and said, ‘Oh my goodness, we have national restaurants of all kinds,'” Lyons said.
The new restaurants caused an uproar in the Evanston community, according to a 1986 Chicago Tribune article. Evanston residents said chains such as Burger King and Taco Bell did not care about neighborhood preservation or the loud noise and litter they caused, unlike locally owned restaurants, the article said.
Because of the controversy, in 1986 Evanston put a three-month moratorium on opening new fast food restaurants while the city government considered how to address the complaints, according to the same Tribune article.
The city eventually lifted the ban, paving the way for Evanston to become the chain restaurant hub it is today. Ald. Delores Holmes (5th) , who has lived in Evanston for almost 62 years, said the number and variety of restaurants in the city benefits citizens.
“I think we are leading the way [in chain restaurants], especially on the North Shore, so I think we are a hub for good restaurants and good eating,” Holmes said.
Lyons agreed that Evanston attracts many national restaurants, but said she also likes the locally owned eateries.
“We don’t want Evanston to look like a strip mall,” she said. “And we don’t want it to look like every other suburban area.”
