Chicago Restaurant Week starts today, and to celebrate we’re looking back at Kinsley’s R

Chicago Restaurant Week starts today, and to celebrate we’re looking back at Kinsley’s Restaurant, located in the Opera House, and celebrated as “the resort of the elite of fashionable society” in this 1866 guidebook, Chicago. A Stranger’s and Tourist’s Guide to the City of Chicago.

Following the Chicago Fire, Kinsley’s reopened at 62 W. Adams Street. The last photograph, from our Historic Architecture and Landscape Image Collection, shows the restaurant as it appeared ca. 1891, when it was serving diners prairie chicken and cardinal punch.