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Northwestern University

Sweet Home Evanston

A Northwestern alumna in her 80s recalls fondly the after-class sodas at Cooley’s Cupboard and tea at the Dominion Room on Davis Street.

Both places are long gone, but we’d like to salute these and other nostalgia-producing spots where Northwestern students took advantage of youthful metabolic rates and munched, snacked, and dined with abandon.

The Hut, Clark near Sherman

Wrote Florence Henderson ’36, “Their ‘spoonit’ was a delicious creation, like a Dairy Queen. Proprietor Joe Shikany could always buoy up a depressed spirit, encourage and sympathize. All these attitudes were very supportive in the early Thirties when they were much needed. I hope the students of today have a place and person which fill the same needs.”

The Huddle, in the Orrington Hotel

Before being renamed for Gary Barnett and his Rose Bowl-bound team, (when he left it was Coach’s Café, and is now the Globe Café) it was the Huddle. No matter what the name, it’s been a favorite place to cheer for the Wildcats.

The Spot, Foster, east of the “L”

Northwestern University Archivist Kevin Leonard remembers that The Spot was the first place to serve beer with a meal, after Evanston’s traditional ban on alcohol was lifted in 1972. Now located in La Jolla, California, The Spot has the same Chicago-style pizza and pictures on the walls but the weather outside is often better.

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