The End of an Era

At 2:00 pm on Monday, May 8th, the Rainbow closed its doors for (presumably) the last time. And with that, another vestige of my childhood has faded away, along with things like Santa Claus, American-made Saturday morning cartoons, and the concept that kids can play outside without getting kidnapped by criminals, molested by clergy, or hit by drunk drivers. The reason for the closure is assumed to be because the owner was caught evading taxes, although it's important to note that this conclusion has primarily come from rumors, and I don't put much stock in rumors anymore. So take it for what it's worth: I would hate to ruin the credibility of a website as highly esteemed and trusted by its audience as this one by posting unsubstantiated rumors.

Anyway, the Rainbow, for those of you who don't know, is a diner/cocktail lounge where I have been eating breakfast on Sundays for at least ten years now. It is attached to a bowling alley. There are certainly people out there who find its rather blue collar setting a little off-putting (Lord knows those soulless chain restaurants like Perkins and Denny's are significantly brighter and cleaner), but it has never bothered me. The food was, for the most part, nothing particularly spectacular either: it certainly wasn't bad, but it wasn't breathtaking either. Except, that is, for the soup. Oh, the soup. If there really is a heaven, all I can say is, they better have have ample amounts of that soup there. Every Sunday the soup of the day was cream of chicken rice soup, and I have never had a soup better than it. It was easily my favorite thing in the world to eat hungover, handily beating out burritos or anything deep fried. It always managed to fill you up without upsetting your stomach, which is always a concern when hungover (it is important to note that on that one fateful day, it was a french fry stuck in my throat, and not the soup, that caused me to vomit all over the front of the Rainbow). All in all, that cream of chicken rice soup probably cracks the top five on the list of my favorite foods in the world.

But more than the food, the Rainbow was special because it was mine. I knew almost everyone who worked there, and they all knew me. I also knew a decent amount of the regulars who frequented the place. When a member of my family couldn't make it to breakfast, the waitstaff would always notice and ask why they weren't there. When I came in hungover (a not infrequent occurrence) they would always notice and bring out pitchers of water without me asking. Mundelein isn't the biggest of cities, but it isn't a one-stoplight town where everyone knows each other either. At the Rainbow, however, I always felt connected to that small-town mythos that may or may not have existed before everything got turned into a suburb. I always got a kick out of that. In the end, you really can't put a price on being able to walk into a place, order "the usual," and have them know exactly what you mean. Even if they did occasionally bring me a pickle when I didn't want one.

To be honest, it still hasn't hit me that it's gone. My guess is that I won't fully grasp the situation until Sunday, when we have to figure out what we're doing for breakfast. I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, do you try out another restaurant, knowing it can never be as good, or do you just give up on the whole concept of Sunday morning breakfast? Though I don't know what we're going to do next, one thing is clear: hangovers are going to be hung just a little more over now that a Mundelein institution has gone.