Feelgoody Names: The New Black? Or The Jumped Shark?  Looks
Local to us!  Looks Local to us!Photo: courtesy Hilton Suites
Two just-announced openings make us wonder if it's time to start
regarding natural, locavore, good-for-the-planety-sounding
restaurant names with suspicion rather than enthusiasm. It's not
that the places being talked about sound necessarily bad, by any
means— they both sound like they could be decent enough. They
just don't sound like what their names are promising. The first
is Local, not to be confused with Wicker Park's Lokal, which
already exists. It's from the Chicago Cut Steakhouse team and
will be in the Hilton Suites Hotel (whichever one that is),
offering upscale comfort food like... meatloaf with Dr. Pepper
sauce. Uh-huh. Look, it's not just that we consumed all the Dr.
Pepper sauce we ever wanted to at Dixie Que in the early 90s,
but last we checked Dr. Pepper was an industrial product, not
something that grew naturally. Sure, the fried chicken may be
Gunthorp or Swan Creek et