IN 1978, ELI SCHULMAN DECIDED TO MAKE CHEESECAKE THE signature dessert at his famous Chicago restaurant, Eli’s The Place For Steak. He also decided to make it himself—his own recipe, unlike any others he had tasted. So how did a man with no formal culinary or pastry training wind up creating one of the country’s best loved cheesecakes for one of the most popular restaurants in Chicago?
Well, first of all, we’re talking about Eli Schulman, a diamond-in-the-rough kind of guy who needed no last name to be identified. Everyone from movie stars and politicians to the guy selling newspapers on the corner simply called him Eli. A celebrity in his own right, Eli was on the inside track of everything. He was everyone’s best friend and confidante, and Chicago’s go-to guy.
Eli showing off two beautiful slices of cheesecake at Eli’s The Place For Steak, where he invented the dessert.
Actress Ann Sothern, best known for her role as Maisie Ravier in a series of successful movies and radio programs, pays a visit to Eli’s Army Air Corps base in Salt Lake City, where Eli mans a milkshake station.
Eli with a Big Cake at his Army Air Corps base in Salt Lake City, Utah, during World War II. There, Eli honed his baking skills, and this pretty cake is a good example of his work.
Eli’s irresistible charm made people clamor for his attention. The ultimate honor: Eli would sit down at a table, rip the menu in half, and announce, “You’ve made decisions all day…I’ll order for you.”
When Eli was only 16, his father, a baker, died suddenly. Eli was forced to drop out of school and find work in order to help support his mother, brother, and three sisters. Like many other hardworking people living on Chicago’s West Side, Eli held every job under the sun to make ends meet—selling shoes out of the back of a car, working a booth at the Maxwell Street Market, and eventually serving as a 29th Ward precinct captain.
Eli’s debut in the restaurant business was a bit unconventional. The year was 1940, and he spied a foreclosure notice on the door of a coffee shop he frequented at Ogden and Kedzie. Inspired, he bought the building and restaurant on the spot and renamed it Eli’s Ogden Huddle.
A thank-you note to Eli from the US Navy for entertaining the troops.
Eli and his wife, Esther.
On the restaurant’s scheduled opening day, Eli arrived and found the cook passed out drunk on the floor. Customers were arriving, so Eli had no choice but to open. The first order was a breaded veal cutlet. Eli had no idea how to make one, so he hurried back to the kitchen and called his mother to get the recipe. He made his mother’s veal cutlet, the customer loved it, and the rest is history. Soon after, Eli hired a new cook. Eventually, his first customer returned and ordered the same dish—and told him that he liked the veal cutlet he had the first day even better. Eli had a feel for food. If he could dream it, he could make it.
At one point, Eli hung a sign in the restaurant’s window: “If you are hungry and have no money, come in. We will feed you.” He meant to keep it there for only a short time, but it ended up staying there for a dozen years. Eli said that in all that time, he never encountered a single faker.
Generosity was Eli’s signature characteristic. He set the tone that continues today at The Eli’s Cheesecake Company. The company is firmly entrenched in the community, supporting hundreds of Chicago’s not-for-profits.
A year later, Eli was drafted into the Army Air Corps. The Army turned out to be his culinary school of sorts. While Eli’s brother Nate and sister Bertha ran Eli’s Ogden Huddle, Eli ran air base restaurants in Texas, Colorado, and Utah. There, he learned to serve large numbers of people, baked cakes, and even finagled a way to run soft drinks through the water fountains.
After Eli returned from the Army, he married Esther Nettis, who worked with Eli throughout his career in the restaurant business. Nate and Bertha continued to run the West Side Huddle. Eli joined the mass exodus to the North Side and opened a second location at Argyle and Sheridan. After World War II, Chicago’s North Side was booming: people were buying houses, having babies, and eating out. Eli’s big personality and charitable heart quickly gained notoriety. At the same time, he maintained an interest in politics, serving as both a deputy coroner while running the restaurant and years later as a Commissioner of the North Shore Mosquito Abatement District.
In 1962, a few restaurants and odd jobs later, Eli made the big move to the Gold Coast. In that day, it was a mecca for showgirls, up-and-coming entertainers, young professionals, and scores of singles looking for a place to hang out. They found just the place: Eli’s Stage Delicatessen at 50 E. Oak Street. The Deli served breakfast all day and all night, and its six-inch-high hand-cut hot corned beef sandwiches and Eli’s great personality were a powerful draw. Quickly, Eli’s had countless regulars, including local pols, columnists, the City’s movers and shakers, and everyone from Woody Allen and Joan Rivers to Barbra Streisand and Bobby Short. At the Deli, Eli himself became a celebrity and a powerhouse. If it was happening in Chicago, Eli knew all about it.
Eli’s Stage Deli; in the background, the Esquire Theater sign features actress Eve Arden.
Actor “Ooh! Ooh!” Joe E. Ross (Patrolman Gunther Toody on Car 54 Where Are You?) poses with Marc, age 7.
Barbra Streisand eats a corned beef sandwich at Eli’s Stage Delicatessen. She was in town for some shows at Mr. Kelly’s, a nightclub just down the street from the Deli.
Eli, comedian and singer Joe E. Lewis, and funnyman Henny Youngman pose at the Deli.
Eli with “Friends from Illinois: Land of Lincoln,” presenting a bust of Abraham Lincoln to President Lyndon Johnson at the White House in 1967
Eli and Marc, a father-and-son team like no other, displaying Eli’s Cheesecake at the restaurant.
The Deli was very successful, but Eli had yet another dream: a steakhouse. In 1966, while still running Eli’s Stage Delicatessen, he opened Eli’s The Place For Steak in the Carriage House Hotel, located at 215 E. Chicago Avenue. The Deli’s regulars followed Eli to his new white-tablecloth restaurant, where they’d find a mound of chopped liver, vegetable crudités on ice, and a bread basket full of raisin pumpernickel and matzoh on each table. At Eli’s The Place For Steak, liver haters became liver lovers thanks to the famous Liver Eli. And then there were those thick, juicy steaks; Shrimp a la Marc; Shrimp de Jonghe; and countless other dishes Eli imagined and made real.
Eli served various desserts through the years, including the ice cream snowball with coconut and chocolate sauce, apple strudel, and his least favorite dessert of all—fresh fruit. (He would say “It can look great, but taste like a potato… and that’s the last thing people remember.”) In the late ’70s, he decided that cheesecake would be the signature dessert for Eli’s The Place For Steak. Every day between the lunch and dinner service, he would head to the restaurant’s kitchen to experiment with cheesecake recipes, and he’d often serve up test versions to regular customers to get their opinions.
An American Express ad features the restaurant’s famous Liver Eli.
After about a year of testing, Eli finalized four cheesecake recipes: original plain, chocolate chip, cinnamon raisin, and Hawaiian. At the time, Eli had no idea that he was about to change the world of cheesecake forever. Eli’s cheesecake, a richer, creamier alternative to its New York counterpart, featured an all-butter-cookie crust instead of a graham cracker one. It was so deliciously different from other cheesecakes that Eli’s is credited with creating a new class of cheesecake…Chicago Style.
The restaurant’s customers loved the new dessert, but Eli wanted to test it in bigger waters. In 1980, he decided to offer the cheesecake at a booth at the first Taste of Chicago, a food festival dreamed up by his good friend and fellow restaurateur Arnie Morton and Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne. The first Taste was a single-day event, held on July 4 on Michigan Avenue in front of the Tribune Tower. No one knew what to expect. The street was packed with people, and Eli’s booth was among the busiest. Eli feverishly cut cheesecake all day long, as fast as he could, all while wearing a suit and tie.
Eli, Rich Melman, and Don Roth show Mayor Jane Byrne what they’ll be selling at the first Taste of Chicago, July 4, 1980.
The first Taste of Chicago was a rousing success, if crowd size is any indication. Hundreds of thousands of people jammed a six-block stretch of Michigan Avenue, sampling foods from 40 restaurants—and, of course, Eli’s cheesecake.
Eli and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington at Taste of Chicago 1985 with a giant cheesecake replica of Chicago’s Grant Park, complete with a buttercream-and-fondant Buckingham Fountain. Mayor Washington was a big Eli’s Cheesecake fan; he even served it at his celebration in New Orleans when the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl in 1986.
Mayor Daley’s first Taste of Chicago press party, in 1989. Maureen noticed he was eating lunch but had no dessert on the table…so she gathered up the nerve to bring him a whole turtle cheesecake.
In October 1996, Eli’s Cheesecake World, a state-of-the-art 62,000 sq. ft. bakery, retail store, and café, made its debut. Under the sign stands Eli’s granddaughters Kori, Elana, and Haley, along with (left to right) Marc, Illinois Governor Jim Edgar, Maureen, and Maureen’s mother, Harriet.
Marc gives an opening-day tour of Eli’s Cheesecake World to Mayor Richard Daley and Illinois Governor Jim Edgar.
John H. Johnson, publisher and founder of the Johnson Publishing Company and Ebony and Jet magazines, at the opening of Eli’s Cheesecake World.
After the Taste, many other restaurateurs wanted to serve Eli’s cheesecake, but he couldn’t produce enough cakes at the restaurant to keep up with demand. He was at a crossroads—make the cheesecakes for his restaurant and his restaurant alone, or begin a separate cheesecake business. Four years later, Eli’s son, Marc Schulman (the namesake of Shrimp à la Marc), left behind a successful legal career to head up The Eli’s Cheesecake Company. Initially, the company rented a bakery on Chicago’s Northwest Side, but it grew quickly. In 1996, Eli’s Cheesecake World, a 62,000 sq. ft. bakery, café, and retail store, opened at 6701 W. Forest Preserve Drive in Chicago.
From the very beginning, Marc knew that in order to be successful, he had to build the best pastry team possible. One of the first hires was Jolene Worthington, a talented pastry chef, author, and food writer (and a coauthor of this book). Jolene took a very good thing—Eli’s original Chicago-style cheesecake recipe—and experimented until she had created nearly 50 varieties. She viewed cheesecake in a new way, as the most versatile dessert on the planet. She created many different interpretations, but all maintained Eli’s signature taste and texture.
The Eli’s Cheesecake World grand opening and, of course, the world-renowned Jesse White Tumblers flying over a giant Eli’s Cheesecake.
Pictured left to right, Diana Moles, Jolene Worthington, and Mike Newhouse, 1990.
Marc believed that empowering Eli’s associates was critical to the success of The Eli’s Cheesecake Company. In the early 1990s, Eli’s partnered with Wright College to implement a General Education Development (GED) program at the bakery. Eli’s GED candidates took on-site classes three days per week while their coworkers covered for them. This allowed working parents the opportunity to gain a degree and still return home at a decent hour to be there for their families. The day before the 1992 Illinois primary, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton came to Chicago and made a campaign stop at Eli’s Cheesecake, precisely because of Eli’s innovative education program. Clinton won Illinois, and we’d like to think the cheesecake helped!
During the Clintons’ visit to the bakery, Maureen told Mrs. Clinton that the Eli’s team was sure her husband was going to win. She added that they’d come to Washington, DC and make a giant cheesecake for the inauguration. And they did!
In short, Jolene shepherded Eli’s Chicago’s Finest Cheesecake into the 21st century with finesse, seeking out the most specific and best ingredients and expanding her pastry and production team to include 25-year veterans Diana Moles (a coauthor of this cookbook) and Mike Newhouse. Jolene and Diana became cheesecake scientists, experimenting with Eli’s baking practices and thinking outside the 9-inch round. They’ve made cheesecake in every form, from bite-sized squares to frozen on a stick to 2,000-pound rounds for four presidential inaugurations. Eli’s Cheesecake uses cream cheese, of course, which Jolene refers to as “magical,” but she also uses alternatives like goat cheese, quark, crème fraîche, and ricotta to surprise the taste buds. She and her team have been instrumental in turning Eli’s original four cheesecakes into a dessert empire.