Welcome to Heaven,” says the young man at the front desk. It’s Friday night, and Heaven on Seven on Clark is pleasantly full. But just pleasantly full: people waiting for tables aren’t spilling out the door. It isn’t attracting the kind of business its owners are accustomed to.
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Set back off a busy stretch of Clark at Cornelia, the restaurant is easy to miss, and cabbies and customers sometimes do. (To attract business the brothers recently added delivery service.) But the area had a particular draw. “We really thought this was an up-and-coming food neighborhood,” explains Jimmy. He and his brother observed “the metamorphosis, the change of Wrigleyville, where instead of bar and frozen precooked fried food all the time, people are caring what they put in their mouth. It’s a whole new little restaurant scene.”
The Bannos brothers opened the Wabash diner, on the seventh floor of the Garland Building, with their parents in 1980. George and their mother ran the front, while Jimmy and their dad ran the galley-sized kitchen. It was a Jewish deli until Jimmy’s 1984 Mardi Gras menu started customers demanding regular Cajun fare. “We made matzo balls the size of baseballs,” recalls Jimmy. “I made the best kreplachs in the world.” They still keep deli menus tucked in wire holders on the U-shaped counters for customers who want tamer fare.
George proudly shows off the new digs, noting that he didn’t hire an architect. “Hell no. I didn’t use a designer either. I like to do this,” he says. He explains that he copied the “true New Orleans colors” of the Wabash diner and also incorporated some design aspects from the Rush Street restaurant. The idea was “to make everybody feel good” by making the place seem familiar.
–Mara Tapp
