Burbank’s Celebrity-Owned Restaurant Taste Chicago Closes After 15 Years

One of the San Fernando Valley’s most well-known restaurants closed over the weekend after 15 long years. Taste Chicago out of Burbank shuttered on Friday night, leaving behind a menu of Chicago staples like deep dish pizza, Italian beef sandwiches, and Chicago-style hot dogs.

Perhaps even more than the food, Taste Chicago was known as a place for expat Chicagoans to gather to watch the Cubs, Bulls, or Bears and get a taste of home. The restaurant was founded in 2004 by Illinois native and longtime actor Joe Mantegna and his wife Arlene, and Mantegna spent many years dutifully promoting the place during talk show appearances and in local news spots. Now they’ve locked the doors, moving on “with a heavy heart.” The restaurant’s goodbye Facebook post is below:

There’s no word yet on what may come of the Burbank space along Hollywood Way.

Elsewhere, Los Angeles continues to have a pizza moment beyond just Taste Chicago’s well-known deep dish style, including a rare New Jersey-style square pie being made on Fairfax, and some new Neapolitan options on Melrose.

Taste Chicago. 603 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA.

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