Obama reviews restaurants on WTTW’s ‘Check Please,’ lost episode from 2001

January 17th, 2009 at 02:01am Chuck Sweeny

The next president of the United States was on TV Friday night — reviewing neighborhood restaurants in Chicago.

No I am not making this up. The show was WTTW-11’s popular “Check Please” restaurant review program featuring average customers, not professional reviewers.  Back in 2001 when the show was new, one reviewer on one of the episodes was a South Side state senator, Barack Obama. He reviewed Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop, 5525 S. Harper  in Hyde Park, saying he liked it because he could get good, southern food and a reasonable price.

“The prices are right and the portions are good. It has done booming business in the Hyde Park area attracting business from all across the South side,” Obama said.

“Really, it represents the kind of restaurant that every neighborhood should have,” he added.

What’s fascinating about the show is that Obama uses the diverse restaurants — an Italian place in far northwest Edison Park neighborhood, the French themed Le Bouchon in Bucktown, and the Dixie Kitchen on the South Side,  to urge Chicagoans to explore other parts of the city that aren’t familiar to them..

He also does a little campaigning for the South Side, and particularly his legislative district, telling retailers and restaurant owners that if they provide good value and reasonable prices “you can do some good business out on the south side of Chicago.”

What’s uncanny in this episode — called the “lost episode” because it never aired before Friday night — ”is that Obama is exactly the same when talking about the relative merits of restaurants as he is when analyzing options for improving the economy or closing the internment camp camp at Guantanamo, Cuba.

You can watch this on WTTW’s website.

Entry Filed under: Check Please, inauguration