Mishmash Musings

With today being St. Patrick’s Day and all, I’m sure The Weiner’s Circle on Clark St. in Chicago is going to be extra crowded after hours. In case you’ve never heard of it, The Weiner’s Circle is a little hot dog/hamburger stand that is a favorite among drunks and other night owls in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

I first went to The Weiner’s Circle back in high school with a couple of friends of mine and I’ve been making the trek all the way to north Clark St. about once or twice a year since then. Like most people, I go for the atmosphere and the experience rather than the food, and I always make sure to take out-of-town friends or relatives to the place during their visit.

The food at The Weiner’s Circle isn’t anything outstanding. The menu consists of very greasy hot dogs, polish sausages, hamburgers, and fries. The items are all “char grilled”, and you can order most of these things with gobs of melted cheese, which results in one of the highest calorie 2am snacks you could possibly indulge in.

I usually end up ordering the char cheddar burger and cheddar fries. The portion is huge, making The Weiner’s Circle a relatively fair value for the money (but it’s still on the expensive side when you consider that you’re really just getting a burger and fries).

Now for the atmosphere: The Weiner’s Circle is notorious as a place where the workers and customers shout insults at each other. I’ve witnessed these types of exchanges a few times, but from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t happen with every single customer. I think the workers size up the person ordering and make a quick judgment as to whether or not that person would be likely to engage in banter. They’ve never harassed me, and I’ve never tried to antagonize them, so I don’t have any firsthand reports on that front.

Overall, I think The Weiner’s Circle is a good place to go to once or twice just because it’s a Chicago thing to do. But after you’ve been there a few times, there’s very little reason to keep going back.