Russian Workers' Co-operative Restaurant

Culled from: Drury, John. Dining in Chicago, New York: The John Day Company, 1931, p. 177.

Note: The Newberry Library holds the personal papers of author John Drury.

RUSSIAN WORKERS' CO-OPERATIVE RESTAURANT, 162S West Division Street

Situated in the Russian quarter on the northwest side, this dining place has a menu that would certainly make an underfed comrade over in Soviet Russia green with envy. For not only do you find here a comprehensive line of ordinary American foods but all the standard Russian dishes are on the menu — borscht, that tasty thick red soup consisting of beets and milk; kasha, made of buckwheat grits with a sauce of bacon and mushrooms, and goluptse, which is rolled cabbage stuffed with various meats. A tumbler of amber-tinted Russian tea, some fruit, and a cigarette finishes off the meal nicely. Now that you are at leisure, look about you and observe the comrades reading The Daily Worker, for this is a dining place for communists as well as for old conservative White Russians. It is spotlessly clean and the prices are reasonable. And don't be afraid — nobody will toss a bomb.

Maitre d'hotel: Mr. Kutzko