That an angry customer would lob a brick through the glass front door of beloved Chicago hot dog joint The Wiener’s Circle earlier this month was shocking.
The widespread response to the incident, though? Far less so. In fact, the days and weeks since have been perfectly on-brand for a restaurant that has spent the past 39 years cultivating community goodwill through char-dogs, cheddar fries and expertly lobbed insults.
For those who haven’t seen The Wiener’s Circle mentioned on CNN or highlighted on Conan O’Brien’s former late-night show or profiled on public radio’s “This American Life” or sent up on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a bit of background:
Larry Gold and Barry Nemerow opened The Wiener’s Circle in Chicago’s tony Lincoln Park neighborhood in 1983. A handful of years later, as legend has it, Gold was trying, and failing, to get a (possibly inebriated) customer’s attention. So, he did what came naturally and shouted, “Hey, asshole!”
It worked. And, almost immediately, it created a brand that distinguished The Wiener’s Circle from any one of hundreds of Chicago hot dog stands.
Since then, the definitely not-safe-for-work-or-children insults (largely flung after 8 p.m. at the restaurant that’s open ‘til 5 a.m. on weekends) have become so much a part of The Wiener’s Circle’s charm that, during the height of the pandemic, customers could order virtual insults through Facetime at 773-BITCHES. Even with the restaurant closed, to-go customers were willingly (and happily) subjected to “curbside abuse.”
A professionally produced Wiener’s Circle YouTube video from June 2020 starts with somber music and a soothing voice intoning, “In these uncertain times, we’re all longing for a sense of normalcy …” before zooming in on star hot dog-slinger Roberta “Poochie” Jackson, behind the counter, hurling a creative string of four-letter invectives at quarantined watchers.
“Wiener’s Circle resonates because it’s one of the very few authentic-feeling restaurant experiences in the city, but especially in Lincoln Park where just about everything feels contrived,” said Matt Lindner, a longtime Chicago resident and customer. “It is unabashedly and unapologetically Chicago, embodying many of our most defining characteristics. Its food is gluttonous, its staff is hospitable but will not hesitate to put you in line should you disrespect them, and its love of the city is both vocal and immense.”
“I could never work at McDonald’s,” said Manager Evelyn Morris, an employee of the small, flat-roofed, yellow-and-red hot dog stand since 1988. “I need that connection.”
In 1988, Morris was just 21 years old, a single mom of two kids, when her job as a phone technician vanished after the business shut down and locked its doors. Her sister was working at The Wiener’s Circle. And when Morris would drop her off at work, Nemerow (who died in 2016 at age 60) would come up to the car and try to hire her.
Morris told him she wasn’t really interested in a restaurant gig.
He said, “Why don’t you just start? It’s May! The weather’s great! You can get paid weekly until you find something else,” she recalled.
Morris begged off. Nemerow said, “Be here tomorrow.”
She’s been there ever since.
“I recognized this was a pretty unique restaurant,” she said. “I have a problem with people telling me what to do all the time, standing over my shoulder. So long as you’re doing your job, nobody has anything to say to you.”
Five years later, Morris’ 10-year-old daughter died of kidney disease. Insurance wasn’t helping pay for funeral expenses, heaping more stress on top of an already impossibly difficult time. Nemerow told her to pick out whatever was needed and write a check from the restaurant to cover all of the costs.
“I said, ‘Wow. This guy is somebody unique in my life,” Morris said. “I was a single parent and trying to make it and Barry helped me a lot along the way.”
Morris, who calls most everybody “baby,” typically works the day shift. She’s been around long enough to see the toddlers who came in with their parents grow up and visit the restaurant as college kids.
“I’m their second mom here in Chicago,” she said. “When you get in trouble here, I’m going to call your parents.”
Years ago, she worked nights behind the hot dog counter. But she doesn’t really have the constitution for it.
“They tried to kick me off,” Morris said. “The customers tried to kick me off. I’m so nice, they’d call me a B-word. ‘Why is she here? She doesn’t need to be here. Girl, you’re too nice.’ That’s when I used my first swear words with my customers.”
In 2015, a group of investors including Ari Levy (son of Levy Restaurants co-founder Larry Levy) purchased the restaurant from its founders. Not long after, the brand tried to expand to the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa, but that location shut its doors in early 2017.
In 2019, Wiener’s Circle’s owners purchased the building for a reported $1.5 million after buzz circulated that the property was for sale.
Last fall, the restaurant opened an attached bar in a space previously used as a parking lot.
Through all of the changes over the decades, the heart of The Wiener’s Circle has remained unchanged, Morris said.
“Oh, yes, the essence is definitely the same,” she said. “Without that essence, I don’t know if we could survive. It’s very unique and pulls our customers back to us. West Side, South Side, suburbs. It’s just unbelievable.”
Morris said the bar has been quiet during the winter but said she predicts it’ll become a popular spot once the weather warms up.
“The space is really going to be appreciated,” she said. “I couldn’t believe once we reopened what they put back there.”
There’s the well-documented and much-loved in-store Wiener’s Circle experience, of course. But the restaurant has also steadily built its brand with a social media persona as filled with personality as the people behind its counter.
The restaurant’s social media is “a group effort,” according to a direct-message chat with the anonymous @TheWienerCircle Twitter poster this week.
“We like to think of ourselves as a voice of the community, and we all have fun with the fact that we are the most irreverent brand we know. It gives us license to speak our minds and say whatever we want. At least 10 people have come up with different signs, and we’ve crowdsourced plenty of fun ideas and promotions as well.”
The Wiener’s Circle has used the sky-high reader board outside its restaurant and its progressive, Left-leaning Twitter feed to troll everything from the Green Bay Packers, former President Donald Trump, COVID and, just this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.
The restaurant has also used its “voice” to aggressively condemn racists, anti-science rhetoric, anti-gay prejudice, and this month, the “asshole” who threw that brick through the front door.
It all started on Feb. 9, when a customer was asked to put on a mask, refused, and pitched a snowball into the restaurant.
Later that night, the customer returned, this time with a brick. No one was injured, and The Wiener’s Circle captured the whole thing on video, which it posted on Twitter.
“I was shocked because ever since they made the mandate, I haven’t had one customer previous to this guy that had a problem with it,” Morris said of Chicago’s mask-wearing rule.
Restaurant fans shared the tweets hundreds of times, all trying to solve the whodunnit of who smashed the front door, tracking down the getaway car’s owner from its license plate number and offering up clues under the #wienersleuths hashtag.
The tweets went on for days and The Wieners Circle made national news. As yet, the brick-thrower remains at large.
The morning after the incident, Morris showed up to work and a customer was waiting for her.
He said, “I got your glass coming and everything. I’m going to fix this for you.”
“That’s what I think is special about it,” she said of The Wiener’s Circle. “It’s just something special, just talking with people and dealing with people as if they’re a family member or someone you love. And it’s just reciprocated back to us.”