I LIKE TO THINK OF ELI AS HE WAS IN LIFE. Though he died in 1988, I still like to think of Eli as alive. The man was so full of life that it’s not a great leap to imagine him still with us today. I like to imagine the smile that would cross his face as he surveyed the accomplishments of his three granddaughters, all grown and beautiful.
Would Eli smile? Sure, he would. He smiled a lot. He smiled the last time we sat together, at Eli’s The Place For Steak. It was a couple of months before he died, and he was in a reflective mood. He told me, “It’s been the best…and the worst. I’ve met so many people, made so many friends. But as you get older, you start to see them drop off, like leaves from a tree. But to have come from where I came from, to have known the people I’ve known…I’d have to say that I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Eli with Barbara and Frank Sinatra at Eli’s. During that visit, Frank invited all of us to his show. Eli decided not to go because he wanted to make sure everything was perfect at the restaurant for the arrival of Frank and his entourage. Frank spied Eli’s empty seat in the audience and sent his wife out to find out where Eli was. Marc and Maureen told her that he was in the bathroom and quickly called him from a pay phone (this was in the days before cell phones) to tell him to race over—and he did.
Opening of the Eli M. Schulman Playground with Mayor Richard M. Daley, Marc Schulman, and Illinois Governor James R Thompson
Eli’s plaque in the Seneca Park Eli Schulman Playground.
“Leaves from a tree,” he said again, and immediately I realized that the trees closest to where Eli spent most of his time—in his restaurant—were just across Chicago Avenue, a few steps away, dotting Seneca Park and its small playground. That small patch of green for decades provided a peaceful place, an especially quiet slice of the city, sitting amid the bustle of shoppers and strollers in the shadows of high-rises. There, Eli would often sit and watch little children at play. Sometimes he would talk to them, and his kindly face would come alive. His eyes would sparkle. The little kids at the park, if they thought about him at all, probably considered him to be just some nice old guy. He was all that, and more. Former Bears’ coach Mike Ditka once said of him, “To know this man was to love him.” Eli could talk with anyone. He listened. He cared. And he was an enthralling storyteller. Even in the center of his star-studded milieu, he exemplified simple values: friendship and honesty, Chicago style. Few knew that the watch he wore was a gift from Frank Sinatra.
Eli was a poor kid from the Greater Lawndale area on the city’s West Side. There was not much time for playing in parks for him; his dad died when he was young, and from then on, Eli had to work hard. He sold 10-cent windup toys on street corners and seat cushions at the City’s baseball yards, hawked newspapers, and delivered packages. He made it, and he made it big. His restaurants were patronized by famous and influential people. Some of them were good people, and most were his friends, too.
I regret not spending more time with Eli in the park by his restaurant, and never having the chance to go to the track with him—the ponies were his special passion. But I was at the restaurant often enough to observe him in his element. There, he was something to behold, moving from table to table, chatting, joking, making new friends. It was, of course, a gathering place for luminaries from the worlds of sports, show business, and politics—especially politics. They were drawn as much by the food as by the owner’s magnetic personality.
In the pages that follow, Eli’s daughter-in-law Maureen, wife of his only son, Marc, will share a much more detailed biography of this great man. What you’ll read there would make Eli smile, too. He’d be so happy to know how well Marc and Maureen have lived their lives, and how they and others have turned his modest little idea for a new dessert into an international sensation. Today, Eli’s cheesecake is a favorite after-dinner treat for current and former presidents, and perhaps future ones as well, since Hillary Clinton enjoyed some at her 50th birthday party. I like Eli’s cheesecake, too, and am continually surprised by its variations. I can get it almost anywhere, any time these days.
I can just imagine the smile Eli would have had on the cold February morning when a group gathered under a large tent in the park by his restaurant. They were there to celebrate the news that the park’s playground would be renamed in Eli’s memory, and to announce that money would be raised to rebuild the playground and to reconstruct the entire park. Eli’s The Place For Steak is gone now, replaced by the Lurie Children’s Hospital. It’s a fitting transformation, and something else that would make Eli smile. In that playground across the street, which now bears his name, he’d find a plaque bearing his likeness and these words: “Eli Schulman, the renowned restaurateur and creator of Eli’s Cheesecake, was a Chicago original. Friend to all Chicagoans, no matter what their status, Eli embodies the determination, the open-armed spirit and the street-smart charm of the City he loved. This playground, dedicated May 7, 1990, stands as a living tribute to Eli, a man for all Chicago seasons. Enjoy!”
I love that still today, Eli could wander over and find his park filled with kids and their laughter and smiles. Life goes on. —RICK KOGAN
Eli and a young Marc Schulman in front of the Stage Deli on Oak Street, 1966.
Eli’s Ogden Huddle, Eli’s first restaurant, 1940.