Vienna Beef History Museum Closes

UPDATE (1/26/2020): The Vienna Beef History Museum will be closing on February 1, 2020, with no plans for reopening, according to reporting by Block Club Chicago.

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We have not yet reached the dog days of summer, but Chicago is already celebrating its most famous dog, with the opening of the Vienna Beef History Museum.

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition launched the careers of many now-famous food items, including shredded wheat, Aunt Jemima pancake mix, chili, brownies, and one of Chicago’s iconic bites: the hot dog.

The Vienna beef hot dog made its debut at the World’s Fair at a stand operated by Austrian-Hungarian immigrants Emil Reichel and Samuel Ladany. They sold their Vienna sausages for 10 cents in “Old Vienna” on the Midway. Also known as the Austrian Village, this attraction stretched between Ellis Avenue and Greenwood Avenue on the south side of Midway Plaisance, and was constructed to appear as an ancient neighborhood of Vienna. Inside its gates, visitors found a large courtyard, scores of stores and houses, a beer garden, theater and museum.

After the close of the Fair, the businessmen stayed in Chicago and established the Vienna Sausage Company on Halsted Street, where they operated for the next 79 years.

Now celebrating its 125th anniversary, Vienna Beef has opened its own history museum at the company’s headquarters, store, and cafe at 2501 N. Damen Avenue, in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago.

Displays directly related to the Columbian Exposition include a print of founders Emil Reichel and Samuel Ladany (see above), a beautiful framed color print advertising the Columbian Exposition, and a large lithograph of a birds-eye view of the fairgrounds.

Other interesting items on display include a meat grinder from 1859, hot dog books and sports memorabilia, a photo of the original factory being demolished by a hot dog shaped wrecking ball (gone missing, apparently), and a gold-plated cocktail frankfurter.

If any of this made you hungry, remember that Chicagoans have RULES about the classic hot dog. Eat it on a poppy-seed bun with yellow mustard, green relish, chopped white onions, sliced tomatoes, kosher dill pickle spears, sport peppers, and dash of celery salt … but no ketchup!

If meat is not on your menu, just down the street is a temporary vegetarian museum that also highlights its roots in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

The Vienna Beef History Museum is free and open from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays.