On the way to the closed stairway, we stopped where a Steak and Shake once stood. The chain was founded in the Normal part of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan are in 1934. There was nothing left of the restaurant at this particulars location but something Greg said and noted in his handout really caught my attention. A Steak and Shake employee named Howard Kelley claimed he invented Chili Three-Ways although he did not use that name. As any good Cincinnatian would, I felt the need to check and found that a 1931 ad for Weinand's Chili boasted of being the "Originators of the famous dish of Chili, Cheese, and Spaghetti". Sorry Howard, I think we got ya.

The red trimmed building at the right of the photo is where a company named Caramel Crisp made a product first called "Redskins" then "Shirk's Glazed Peanuts" that found real success in 1953 with a name change to "Beer Nuts". We got no closer than within a block of Lucca Grill but everything Greg and others in the tour said about it made it sound like somewhere I wanted to try. It's coming. We got a little closer to the 1902 Illinois Hotel but did not actually reach it. Rooks were $3.50 with a bath, $2.75 without.