The 80-Year-Old Chicago Hot Dog Spot Matty Matheson Loves

Though hailing from Canada, chef and restauranteur Matty Matheson has plenty of opinions regarding the culinary landscape of Chicago – unsurprising, given it is the setting for Hulu's "The Bear", in which he has both starred and acted as an expert consultant. The Windy City famously loves its hot dogs, and Matheson knows exactly where to go to get what he considers the best on offer.

"Gene and Jude's is by far my favorite hot dog in all of Chicagoland," Matheson told Esquire in 2024. "It's the perfect size and snap and I always get it with an orange pop." He added that his usual order was "two dogs, mustard, onion, sports, peppers, and extra salt on the fries." Speaking on the YouTube cooking show "Welcome to the Beef", Matheson agreed with co-host and fellow consultant for "The Bear", Courtney "Coco" Storer that hot dogs were "the perfect snack" during long days of shooting the restaurant-based drama. But he is far from alone in his praise for Gene and Jude's, as the eatery was named the number one hot dog joint in America by Serious Eats and Every Day With Rachael Ray in 2011.

Yet the success of Gene and Jude's might never have been achieved, were it not for an ill-considered gamble. In 1949, Gene Mormino lost the hot dog stand he had been running for four years after betting it in a poker game. However, his son Joe would later tell Time Out Chicago that "losing in that poker game was probably the best thing to every happen to him." Unbowed, Mormino would join forces with his high school friend Jude DeSantis and open the doors of Gene and Jude's in 1951, quickly becoming a beloved local fixture.

Gene and Jude's enduring popularity is especially impressive, considering its menu strays somewhat from the conventions of Chicago-style hot dogs, over which the city's natives can be deeply defensive. But, that's just one of the facts worth knowing about these dogs.

An authentic Chicago-style hot dog is an all-beef link (with Vienna Beef widely considered the standard), served on a poppy seed bun, and topped with pickle relish, mustard, onion, tomato, celery salt, a pickle spear, and the distinctively Illinoisan addition of sport peppers. While the Chicago dog has its roots in the Great Depression, where its heavily-laden precursors provided inexpensive yet filling sustenance to the city's working-class, Chicago's love of hot dogs continues to this day. According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, travelers passing through O'Hare International Airport — from which, Gene and Jude's is just a few miles away — consumed a staggering 725,000 hot dogs in 2025, which is six times more than that of Los Angeles International Airport and NYC's LaGuardia Airport combined.

Unlike many other Chicago establishments, hot dogs at Gene and Jude's are served only with mustard, relish, onion, and sport peppers, with the only other items on the menu being fries and corn role tamales. This austere selection has done nothing to impact the loyalty of its customers (Matty Matheson included), who appreciate the quality of the food, and that the fact that it has remained the same for generations. Also unchanged is the militant (and typically Chicagoan) refusal of Gene and Jude's to serve ketchup with the hot dogs — a position that's also held by Martha Stewart.