Know Your 19th-Century Chicago Restaurateurs: H. M. Kinsley

So, how ‘bout that Herbert M. Kinsley, eh? Crazy the way he dominates the Chicago food scene!

Restaurant-ing through history takes us back to the gay old 1860s with their profile of Kinsley, the undisputed king of the late-nineteenth century Chicago restaurants. In 1865 he took over the restaurant inside the Opera House, which served well but lost money. Among other things, he ran the first-ever Pullman dining car (on the Chicago-Northwestern line), opened a restaurant in Riverside that failed along with the planned development, and lost his flagship restaurant on Washington Street to the Great Chicago Fire.

In 1874, he opened and quickly closed a fancy restaurant, claiming “The expenses of a fashionable restaurant just now are too great, and the receipts too small, to warrant keeping it open longer.

The more things change…

Anatomy of a restaurateur: H. M. Kinsley [Restauran-ing through history]

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Know Your 19th-Century Chicago Restaurateurs: H. M. Kinsley