Red Star Inn (Original)

The Red Star Inn opened in the 1890s in a narrow Victorian-style building on Clark Street, across from the Germania Club in what was then a heavily German neighborhood. For nearly 70 years, it was considered the premier German restaurant in Chicago.

The interior was legendary: beautiful woodwork that made patrons feel like they'd stepped into the Black Forest. The menu featured authentic German fare - grilled pig's feet, smoked beef tongue, pot roast, and what Chicago Magazine later called 'the city's best German pancakes.' It was a gathering place for Chicago's German-American community, a slice of the old country on the Near North Side.

In 1970, developers targeted the building for Sandburg Village urban renewal. Local residents and dignitaries rallied to save the historic structure, and for a time it seemed secure. But on Ash Wednesday, February 11, 1970, the Red Star Inn closed abruptly after being sold to the city earlier that day. The building was demolished. The restaurant later reopened in Old Irving Park, surviving until the mid-1980s.