Sunday, April 10, 2022

Sky-Hi Drive-In and Restaurant, Chicago; Eat in a Real DC-7 Airplane.

Menu Cover


Chicago's Sky-Hi Drive-In and Restaurant, in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, was at 102 South Cicero Avenue and opened in late 1963 with a staff of 22. The all-electric restaurant operated in a salvage-yard DC-7. The plane's cabin was a 10-table fine dining experience perched over a luncheonette that served drive-in customers.






Hospitality Magazine said the Sky-Hi Drive-In was the first restaurant in a converted commercial airplane in the Nation. 

The Dimas brothers, Jim, John, and Chris, evidently spent way too much money renovating and outfitting the 110-foot-long plan and the expensive professional kitchen facilities.
Drive-In, limited seating and the kitchen were on the ground level. In the roof-mounted DC-7 was a 10-table Fine Dining experience with china and quality silverware.


It may not have been the most favorable site located on a lot that previously held an auto body shop. 

Sky-Hi opened in 1963 but didn’t really take off — and closed two years later

For those of you that swear there was a Sky-Hi Drive-In at Midway Airport, you are mistaken. What was at 55th Street and Cicero Avenue was the "Trivic Airport Pines Midway Airport Restaurant."
Trivic Airport Pines Midway Airport Restaurant, 55th and Cicero, Chicago.
Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

2 comments:

  1. I had a birthday party there as a kid. Really cool!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I worked there in the dining room. The food would come up on a dumb waiter. I was seventeen years old.

    ReplyDelete

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