Superdawg Drive-In
Maurie and Flaurie Berman opened this as a summer stand in May 1948 to pay for his accounting degree, and their children still run it. You order through a 1954 switchboard and a carhop clips the tray to your window.
Why go
The two of them met at Von Steuben High School, married in August 1947 after he came home from Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, and opened the stand the following May with no restaurant experience at all.1 The building is a cinderblock box, twelve feet by twenty, and its kitchen is still the original footprint.1 The sky-blue section went up in 1954 to look like O'Hare's control tower, and Lisa Drucker says her father wanted a beacon.1 The two twelve-foot hot dogs on the roof are the founders: papier-mache over a chicken-wire frame, still stuffed with the original newspapers, fiberglassed later so they could stay out through the winter.1 Scott Berman and his sister Lisa and her husband Don ran the place as of May 2023, and the Sun-Times says you will see all three on site.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Superdawg. All beef, a little spicier than most, on a poppy seed bun with a pickled green tomato. The house is firm that it is
not a wiener, not a frankfruter, and not a red hot.
2 - Order: the Whoopskidawg if you want the Polish. It comes on an onion roll with grilled onions and a pickle.2
- Order: a malt, or a Supersoda, which is ice cream over chocolate, strawberry or pineapple soda.2
- Avoid: the Whoopercheesie. The Infatuation, which scored the place 7.8, calls the double cheeseburger
all around not bad.
2
What locals & experts say
- Chicago Sun-Times, on the 75th (9 May 2023):
There are hundreds of places in the city where you can find an authentic Chicago-style hot dog, none of them equaling the experience of driving into Superdawg on a summer night.
1 - Scott Berman, on the rooftop figures of his parents:
Their eyes don’t just blink; they wink at each other adoringly.
1 - The Infatuation Chicago (Sam Faye, 4 May 2023), scoring it 7.8:
Superdawg remains a true drive-in with carhop service.
2
Good to know
- How it works: pull into a carport, order through the speaker box, wait. You can also order inside at the counter.2
Verdict
should-visit — Seventy-eight years in one 12-by-20-foot cinderblock building, still run by the founders' children, still taking orders through the 1954 switchboard, and the kitchen is the original footprint. That is the argument, and it is a real one. The rung stops short of the top because the food scored 7.8 and the reviewer called the double cheeseburger all around not bad. You are going for the carport and the poppy seed bun.