Episode 341: I will discuss The 35th anniversary of the release of the 1989 movie Batman, a tribute to actor Donald Sutherland, and The Brown Bear Restaurant in Chicago.
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We used to go to the Brown Bear a lot. We’d meet Grandma and her sister Florence there on Sundays after Mass for brunch. You didn’t mention this, but they would put on a show on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Many of the waitstaff were from Germany and were very talented performers (singers, dancers, comedians and the like), so you’d go in and have dinner, then all the servers would perform. Once, our server was a very tall man from Bavaria who demonstrated the Schuhplattler dance, also called the slap dance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRACYQAkgA). An older member of the staff did a comedic telling of “Hansel & Gretel,” and the night always ended with everyone doing the Schnitzelbank, a sort of singing game kids use to learn vocabulary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5L-6BboaOQ). I guess they ended the show sometime in the late 70’s or 80’s and, as you say, the restaurant closed in 1991. Still, it was a great time and the food was good there, and all of a sudden I have a taste for sauerbraten and spaetzel…