DOWNTOWN — Elizabeth Enriquez of Pilsen walks down LaSalle Street past City Hall every day of the week, and she's so impatient for lobster, she stopped into Luke's Lobster on Friday, three days before it opened.
"I've been waiting for them to open up so long! I usually like the crab that looks like a hot dog, I got it at New Orleans," she said.
It's the kind of pent-up demand that Luke's wants prior to its Monday opening. Six years after the company opened its first restaurant in New York — and has since expanded to more East Coast locations, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. — Luke's is finally dipping its toe into the competitive restaurant waters of Chicago's Loop.
"There's a really intense appreciation of food here, of quality food and authentic stories behind the food that people are eating. They really care about that," said Luke's vice president, Ben Conniff, sitting in the quaint and for-now quiet restaurant at 134 N. LaSalle St., formerly home to Crumbs Bake Shop.
The company's story started in 2009, when Luke Holden of New York decided to ditch a career in finance and reach back into his family's Maine lobstering roots — and the days he spent hauling in lobsters on a boat — to open a restaurant.
On a shoe-string budget, he posted a Craigslist ad looking for a partner, and Conniff answered.
Conniff said what makes Luke's unique is what they call the "traceable" way it handles its lobsters.
Luke's has its own processing company that picks up the lobsters at Maine docks, cooks the lobster immediately and stores it for travel.
"We have our hands on every part of the process. We know exactly what we're getting, we know exactly what harbor it comes from. Unlike most restaurants, we don't have to go to a distributor and say, 'What lobster do you have on sale this week?' We have our hands on every part of the process, from the beginning until someone actually eats it," he explained.
And Conniff says it's a misconception that a lobster sitting in a restaurant display tank is actually the best to eat.
"People say, 'Oh, why don't you cook it fresh?' Well, it's not fresh if it's been sitting in a tank for a week. It's actually totally deteriorated," he said. "The [cooked] meat holds its texture and flavor well, as long as you cook it properly and and chill it properly and keep it refrigerated properly."
The restaurant is partnering with Chicago's Revolution Brewing for beer and Logan Square's Bang Bang Pie and Biscuits for desserts. And there will be outdoor seating.
The company has been opening about three restaurants a year on the East Coast, and the Chicago location, open on Monday, will be the company's 15th restaurant.
Still, the relaxed, "hand-made" roots of the company remain. Conniff looks the part of a Maine vacationer, in a scruffy beard, jeans and flip-flops. He says all the tables and chairs in the new Loop restaurant were made by Luke's brother, built in his Maine garage.
Luke's Lobster, 134 N. LaSalle St., will be open Mondays to Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sundays, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Take-out and outdoor seating will be available.
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