News Tue Sep 02 2008

Exclusive: South Loop's Orange on Harrison To Close

Last month, I wrote a love note of a review in Drive-Thru to Orange on Harrison, the South Loop location of the popular local chain of brunch eateries. Well sign me spurned, because according to sources at Orange, the Harrison Street location is slated to shut its doors permanently by mid-September.

Apparently, the lease is up and the landlord wants more money than Orange's owners wish to bear, given the allegedly shoddy state (according to Orange) of the building and its HVAC system. Owners are hoping to make up for the loss in business with the opening of a new Orange later this month at Clark and Fullerton.

Say it isn't so. The best grilled cheese in downtown Chicago about to bite the dust? Where will the hordes of weekend students with visiting parents in tow who usually people the place on Saturdays and Sundays go? It's not like Yolk has the space to handle that many gourmet pancake-flight refugees.

I should have seen it coming. My last favorite, Pilsen's Take Me Out, burned down soon after I discovered it. Note to any eateries I've reviewed recently: you may want to cross your fingers for the next few days. Bad news always seems to travel in threes.

In all seriousness, a sad loss this will be for a neighborhood with few other close-by options anywhere near as cool, or with as good grub. Oh well, River North's Kitsch'n. I guess you're my new brunch daddy now.

— Mike Doyle / Comments (0)