Chef Shangri-La

Visit: 26 Apr 2015

I visited several bars for the CATT (Chicago Area Tiki Tour) in 2015. This was one of them.

Tiki Bar:

12 Photos

Chef Shangri-La Bar, Restaurant & Store – North Riverside, Illinois, United States

Opened in 1976.

For some reason, this gem of a restaurant often gets forgotten... likely because Chicago is a relatively tiki-rich city. Chef Shangri-La deserves a visit, as its drinks are spot-on, and the food is predictably and somehow appropriately mediocre. The place has a sort of almost neglected, run-down feel, but the bones are there, and there are tikis everywhere. The bar in particular has recently undergone a rare remodel that has improved the feel of the place.

Chef Shangri-La himself, owner Paul Fong, could often be found there before his passing in 2012. Before opening his own Polynesian restaurant, Fong was the chef at the now-defunct Shangri-La restaurant in Chicago.

The restaurant has a few Witco pieces, including a very large Ku that greets you immediately upon entry. These pieces are some of the last Witco items produced; Witco went out of business one year after Chef Shangri-La opened.

They also have a small gift shop.

As you will glean from their social media, the bar hosts a number of tribute singers/bands (Elvis, Olivia Newton John, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, etc...).

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Date Created
26 Apr 2015
Date Updated
13 Sep 2023
Author
Trader Tom
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