Exchequer Restaurant & Pub

The house

Housed in a nineteenth-century building on Wabash, the Exchequer has been feeding the Loop since 1969. Longtime servers talk about booths that are occupied when the floor chart says they are not: a man finishing a beer, a woman who vanishes when the salad lands. The building has a century of hotel, shop, and restaurant lives stacked in the plaster. Staff treat the extra guests as part of the house, not a show. Sit downstairs for the deep dish. If a table near you feels taken, it may be.

The pan pizza is the honest reason this room stays full. Eat it. Then see whether the booth behind you empties when you look twice.

The Ghostly Gourmet