Victoria Station Restaurants in Illinois.

Victoria Station was a chain of railroad-themed steakhouse restaurants. At the peak of its popularity in the 1970s, the chain had 100 locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The concept evolved from a Cornell University Hotel School graduate project, according to original owners Bob Freeman, Peter Lee, and Dick Bradley, graduates of the school.

The first restaurant was located in San Francisco. The chain was designed to attract members of the baby boom generation. The theme of the restaurant was loosely based on London's Victoria Station.

Antique English railway artifacts were used as decor inside, and the exteriors were composed of American Railway cars, primarily boxcars, with a signature Caboose in front. A London-style phone booth was on the "entry platform" for each restaurant.

Prime rib was the featured item on a limited menu that included steaks, barbecued beef ribs, and shrimp done in a variation of scampi style known as "Shrimp Victoria."

Most Victoria Station restaurants used authentic railway cars for dining areas, often boxcars or cabooses. The Victoria Station chain flourished in the 1970s, according to a memoir by former Victoria Station corporate marketing manager Tom Blake.

The peak of success of the Victoria Station restaurant chain took place at the time of the culmination of a joint venture with Universal Studios, which resulted in the opening of Victoria Station Universal City, a location on the "hill" near where Citywalk now stands. At its peak, the Universal City location of Victoria Station was among the highest-grossing restaurants in the U.S. The U.S. operations of the Victoria Station chain began running into financial difficulties in the mid-1980s, causing gradual shut-downs of the franchise restaurants.

They filed for bankruptcy in 1986. The one Victoria Station restaurant in Salem, Massachusetts, was shut down on December 6, 2017.

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INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Chicago map of settlement patterns in 1950.

Looking over the map which shows where different ethnic groups settled in Chicago, some of the elements of this map caught my eye as they seem a little off.

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Let's start with the year at the bottom right-hand corner of the map: 1976. Also, the mayor listed on the map is Richard J. Daley, who was mayor in 1976 but wasn't mayor in 1950; Daley didn't take office until 1955.

Notice how its boundaries of O'Hare International Airport in the upper left of the map aren't bordered? That's because O'Hare wasn't annexed into Chicago's city limits until 1956. And the use of the term "black" to describe African-American settlements wasn't common in 1950—the standard nomenclature at that time was "negro."

This map was printed by the City of Chicago Department of Development and Planning to highlight Chicago's place in American history during the nation's bicentennial celebrations of the American Revolution. So Mayor Daley ordered the map reprinted to show Chicago's growth into a "world-class city." 

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.