Just over a decade after he graduated from Northwestern, Peter Duffy (Communication ’98) stood on the sidelines of the Chicago Marathon with his then-girlfriend — now wife — by his side, wearing a t-shirt he’d bought years earlier just a few miles up the road in Evanston.
A runner, winded and focused, huffed past and, without missing a beat, pointed at Duffy’s shirt. “Greatest restaurant in America,” he quipped as if it were an old inside joke.
The shirt, a souvenir from Mustard’s Last Stand on Central Street, wasn’t just a piece of clothing. It was a symbol — a shared piece of pride for Duffy and his friends, just as it is for the thousands of others who’ve crossed the threshold of the iconic hot dog stand since it opened in 1969.
But when Jerry Starkman first bought the building, a hot dog stand wasn’t what he had in mind at all.
Starkman had been the owner of Inferno Pizza, just about a block from Mustard’s current location. When he couldn’t secure a long-term lease, he decided to shift gears. The idea was to set up a temporary hot dog stand while he figured out his next move. But what was meant to be short-term quickly became something much bigger.
“It just took off, and he never looked back,” Steve Starkman, Jerry Starkman’s son, said.
Steve Starkman — who took over co-ownership of Mustard’s with his brother, Lonnie Starkman, after their father died in 2022 — was just three years old when the business opened. He joked that he put in one of the first nails with a toy plastic hammer, while his mother stood behind the counter, pregnant with his younger brother.
Mustard’s has always been a family business, through and through. Both brothers worked there as teenagers, and now they employ their own children to follow in their footsteps. For Steve Starkman, it’s this deep-rooted sense of family that keeps the shop feeling timeless.
“My dad said he wanted a customer who walked in 50 years ago to taste the same thing 50 years later,” Steve Starkman said.
Once the Starkmans decided Mustard’s would remain a hot dog stand, they held a naming contest in the early ’70s in which the victor would receive $100 and a year’s worth of free hotdogs.
The winner’s entry, “Mustard’s Last Stand,” was inspired by a former city fair on Custer Avenue, known as Custer’s Last Stand — a nod to the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn, where U.S. Lt. Col. George Custer was defeated by Native American tribes in Montana.
Steve Starkman said his dad became known by a handful of nicknames over the years with many customers calling him the “Elvis of Evanston” or “Colonel Mustard” due to his local prominence.
Over the years, Mustard’s has meant different things to different people: a gathering place for esteemed NU alumni, like Michael Wilbon and David Schwimmer; a go-to spot for a quick bite after athletic events; and, for some, even a place where love begins to bloom.
“A lot of people had their first dates at Mustard’s. There have been many proposals,” Lonnie Starkman said. “There’s a whole bunch of different things that happen here.”
He added that on several occasions, couples who married at a nearby church came by for a hot dog afterward, calling it “the first meal of the rest of their lives.”
Aside from the Starkmans, other staff members at Mustard’s have forged their own sense of family through years of experience, creating lasting connections with those who’ve chosen to become part of the shop’s legacy.
Keith Woods, a longtime employee at Mustard’s, entered the shop’s history when he was looking to make a little extra cash after returning home from the military.
Woods — who worked at the shop for almost 30 years before he died in 2013 — earned a reputation for knowing customers’ orders down to the last condiment, even if they hadn’t stopped by in years.
Though it’s been more than a decade since his passing, Woods remains an irreplaceable part of Mustard’s documented history. His photo is among the many proudly displayed on the walls, a highly coveted spot for customers who have left a mark on the shop.
“A lot of these guys come in over the years, and if we take it down, they come in and ask, ‘Where’s my picture? You’ve got to put it back up,’” Lonnie Starkman said. “So we find it and put it back up.”
While the brothers note that their current customer base consists more of residents, alumni and visiting fans rather than current students, they don’t seem to mind.
For former students like Duffy, it’s part of what makes returning to Mustard’s so special.
“When you’re a college kid. It doesn’t really stick, and that’s fine,” Duffy said. “But when you go back and nostalgia is more of a thing, you’re more appreciative that it’s there and has stood the test of time.”
Email: audreypachuta2027@u.northwestern.edu
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