On this episode, The Chicago Minute takes us into the sandwich shop behind the award-winning show The Bear. 

If you aren’t familiar with the hit comedy-drama series The Bear, you might be the only one. Since its initial release in June 2022, the show has been accruing acclaim worldwide, earning 10 Primetime Emmy awards, four Golden Globe awards and a handful of acting wins for its cast members. 

Starring Jeremy Allen White, The Bear follows a brilliant young chef’s attempts to revive his deceased brother’s Chicago sandwich shop. Through his challenges with unresolved debt, a beat-up kitchen and an irascible staff, the show intimately reveals the realities of a restaurant— and the fans love it.  

In fact, the show is so adored that loyal viewers have been flocking to the restaurant that The Bear is based on: Mr. Beef. The small sandwich shop sits nestled on North Orleans Street—where it has been since 1979—and amasses herds of adoring fans, celebrities and hungry Chicagoans every year. 

With so much fame to their name, one is left to wonder how the dynamic of the restaurant operates under such attention and pressure. To find out, 14 East’s documentary team, The Chicago Minute, packed up our equipment to spend a day at the famous joint. But when we walked into the place this past winter, we simply found ourselves in another classic Chicago sandwich shop.  

Under the clock of customers in line, workers hurried around the heated kitchen, yelling orders over their shoulders. Neatly wrapped sandwiches appeared on the counter for a second before they were gone, taken to the big dining table in the room over where customers sat hip to hip, enjoying their food. The walls were adorned with picture frames of family members and friends, and a stack of styrofoam cups leaned to the left next to the cashier. A cardboard sign over the stove read “CASH ONLY.”  

The whole experience of the place felt humble and human. Besides the one poster for the show on the wall, nowhere else did the restaurant boast of its prestige or fame from The Bear. For workers like Mikey G, the attention and success have always just been a part of the job.  

“We have people that have been here for a long time, you name it,” he said. “From the worst scoundrel of the world to the highest person in office, we’ve had them all here.”  

It’s true. Among the photographs on the wall are a handful of politicians, musicians and celebrities. Some pictures are pleasantly vandalized with sprawling signatures while others feature love letters to the restaurant or thank you notes to the staff.  

The sandwich shop had made a name for itself long before The Bear. They had gained publicity in the past on popular local radio stations such as WRCX-FM, receiving recognition and praise from radio personality Matthew Erich “Mancow” Muller. When the television networks took over afterward, Mr. Beef was featured on shows like Food Wars and Restaurant Recovery, too.  

The employees had family friends to thank for spreading the word, too. Mikey G even laughed when he recalled the times Jay Leno himself would “sleep in the back” and wake up to have a sandwich and a glass of milk at the restaurant. 

But no one could predict the publicity that would come when a friend of the owners said he was going to make a show about Mr. Beef. Christopher Storer, screenwriter and director of The Bear, had grown up observing the energy and camaraderie of the restaurant, and when he told the owners about his plans to put that in a series, they laughed in his face. But the show went on anyway. 

And, of course, the rest was history.  

“You have to understand the intensity of this … it was insane,” said Christopher Zucchero, the current owner. “People were just going nuts—causing car accidents, stopping in the middle of the street to take pictures.”  

They even told us how customers would come in, expecting to see Jeremy Allen White in the flesh behind the counter. The restaurant had surely seen its fair share of fan activity for Mr. Beef, but nothing such as this.  

“It’s literally bringing people from all over the world … CBS was in [here] filming for CBS Sunday Morning and somebody said they were from Argentina and Venezuela, Estonia,” said Jason. “The whole dining room was filled with people not from the United States, and they were all here because of The Bear, eating beef sandwiches.”  

At times, the employees admit that the restaurant became busier than it could handle, but by that point, the staff was already tried and true. Despite any influx of fans and customers, the workers at Mr. Beef had their process on lock.  

“There’s a lot of times where you want to be like, ‘I want to take a break, I want to go to the bathroom,’” said Jason. “You just got to keep going.” 

John Storniolo has been working at Mr. Beef since 1985. To him, “everything is still the same.”  

“People are a little bit different—you know, I see the customers taking pictures and everything. I don’t mind. I have fun,” he said. “When they video me making the beefs I make them real nice.”  

The Mr. Beef workers have boiled it down to the basics. They don’t care much for the exposure or media attention that they encounter on a daily basis. If anything, the biggest thing that matters to them is their relationship with each other through it all.  

“Everybody gets along. We all enjoy each other’s company, a lot of the stories, a lot of things. But we always seem to have that tightness with everybody here,” said Mikey G.  

Christopher Zucchero owes that sense of camaraderie to his father, Joe Zucchero, who originally bought the shop and got it where it is today. Since Zucchero was a kid, he’s been working at Mr. Beef with his Dad.  

“I don’t have an older brother, I’m the oldest child,” said Zucchero. “So all these guys, for better or for worse … they are like my oldest brothers. They are like family.”  

When Joe passed away in March 2023, Christopher took over the business. Now, a large photo of his father hangs on the wall across from the kitchen, and the legend he created—the family he built—lives on within the restaurant.  

“He was my best friend and he left kind of a hole here, in me,” said Mikey G. “But we’re just trying to keep it going and doing what we do.”  

And that is the attitude that remains among the workers at Mr. Beef. They do what they need to do, and it’s as simple as that. 

“I think [my dad’s] memory is keeping us all together for the most part and that’s all I could ask for … it’s all I’d ever want,” said Zucchero. “Forget about all this exposure and all this shit about Mr. Beef, I don’t even care about that. What I got out of [this] is that I’m very lucky and that was a big gift that guy gave me.”  

Mikey G agreed.  

“I don’t think [Joe] even realized how many people he actually touched. He had no idea what he did.” Mickey G said.  

With an emphasis on togetherness and a drive to get the job done, the folks at Mr. Beef carry on with the restaurant, no matter what force walks through the door. With filming currently in session for the next season of  The Bear, the staff could gear up for the next potential wave of craziness, but instead, they just take it by day.  

“The third season might be s—t,” said Zucchero, “Who knows?” 

To meet the faces behind Mr. Beef, or to hear more about the stories that craft the restaurant’s unique history, you can watch the documentary from The Chicago Minute team online at fourteeneastmag.com or on YouTube at @14eastmagazine88. 

Header by Meredith Bach