Jim Gallios is as Chicago as the Wabash el, in whose shadows he’s been feeding much of the city for the past 46 years. Feeding it real food: steaks, prime rib, multiethnic specials, and some of the best barbecued ribs this side of 39th Street. Harry Truman once drank bourbon after hours at his joint; HUD secretary Henry Cisneros just flew back to Washington with a batch of his Canadian back ribs; Bill Veeck spent so much time eating and drinking at the end of the bar that they enshrined the seat.
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The Tap kept expanding eastward, adding to its original odd mix of German, British, and Tiffany decor; nobody remembers exactly when it became Miller’s Pub. In 1963 the brothers opened the Wabash Inn on the southwest corner of Wabash and Adams, self-service by day, wait staff at night, featuring ribs grilled over a huge open pit visible from the street. By the mid-70s their empire also included a glorified coffee shop on Wabash named Vannie’s, after the fourth and youngest brother.
Disaster in the name of progress struck in 1989, when the entire Adams Street frontage was demolished, closing down Miller’s Pub and the Wabash Inn. The solution was to move the pub’s original trappings to Vannie’s, and in 1991 the present Miller’s Pub opened–a rambling, bilevel spot as polyglot in its decoration as the old.
He shows me an autographed portrait of Henry Cisneros. “He loved the ribs the first time he was here. So I packed some for his flight back. Then he wanted something to help him stay neat, so I threw in a couple of our linen napkins.”
Gallios let them in and was introduced to the president, who first asked only for some orange juice, then decided on a shot of Jack Daniels. “It’s good for the heart,” he said, then told the history of the distillery. When Truman offered to pay, Gallios refused.
There’s a well-textured, smoky half slab of ribs with a zesty sauce ($9.50) and a wonderfully gooey pizza with a crackling thin crust topped with spinach and sausage ($8.25). Pizza is also sold by the slice. The corned beef was lean and juicy ($4.50), almost as good as Manny’s, and the crisped gyros ($3.95) was as good as anybody’s. The onion rings ($1.95) were gigantic, and I would have liked the hefty steakburger ($3.95) more if it hadn’t been well-done. The fish sandwich ($4.25) was decent, but would have been better with Miller’s own tartar sauce instead of the prepackaged brand.
