Conor McNamara grew up in Beverly on Chicago’s Southwest Side, just down the street from a local joint called Nicky’s Grill and Yogurt Oasis.
“We’ve been coming here as long as I can remember,” he told Curious City outside the restaurant nestled in a strip mall on 103rd Street. “I remember after I learned how to ride a bike, we came here for blue moon ice cream.”
Nicky’s serves up all the Chicago fast food classics, like pizza puffs and hot dogs — but one of Conor’s favorites has always been their signature double cheeseburger: the Big Baby.
As Conor grew up and started driving around the rest of the South Side, he noticed there were Nicky’s fast food restaurants all over the place with nearly identical menus. So he wrote in to Curious City asking:
How did some variation of Nicky’s become such a popular name for places serving street food?They seem to be everywhere, most serve similar menu items — like the Big Baby — but none of them seem to be connected aside from the styles of food.
This week, we're revisiting that story.
