MCKINLEY PARK — Mike Szczytko knows the next batch of his family's famous tamales will be the last one. It doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier.
“It’s tough. I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Szczytko said Monday, wrapping up a batch of 1,100 tamales. “It’s like giving up a family member.”
On Tuesday, after 70 years in business, Veteran Tamale will deliver its final orders and close.
Veteran Tamale siblings Mike and Carla Szczytho wrapping tamales. [Photos by DNAinfo/Ed Komenda]
Carla Szczytko wrapping "bunch" tamales by hand. pic.twitter.com/8eUD0HBa8j
— Ed Komenda (@ejkomenda) February 6, 2017
Szczytko and his sister, Carla, will wrap and package the final tamale batch for remaining customers like St. Barbara, Bishop’s Chili in Westmont and a neighborhood hot dog vendor.
“We know we’re going to do the last batch, but it hasn't hit me yet," Szczytko said. “That’s all it is. When it’s done, it’s done.”
In a hospital bed last year, Szczytko’s father, Bob, decided to shut down the family business.
Stacks of tamales at 3133 S. Archer Ave.
A mountain of tamales.
Over the last year, the 79-year-old tamale chief has struggled with clogged carotid arteries, and several strokes landed him at Lemont's Mother Theresa Home. On the business side, Veteran Tamale hasn't made nearly as much money as it used to. There's a need for new equipment and more customers.
In Mr. Szczytko's absence, it's been difficult for the family to keep the shop running.
Bob Szczytko and his son, Mike Szczytko. [DNAinfo/Casey Cora]
“Let’s close it down for now,” Bob told his son.
After news Veteran Tamale would close spread through the neighborhood, customers flooded to decades-old shop at 3133 S. Archer Ave., driving sales.
Mike Szczytko tying tamales.
Mike Szczytko wrapping tamales with a machine his grandfather built. pic.twitter.com/DaigZMU4Xe
— Ed Komenda (@ejkomenda) February 6, 2017
“When we announced we were going to close, we started making money,” Szczytko said. “It’s not money we’re going to play with. It’s money we have to pay bills with.”
Using a battered machine his grandfather built to tie tamales with a string, Szczytko talked about what the family business has meant to him.
Veteran Tamale was a constant setting throughout his life.
“My dad kept it going,” Szczytko said. “It was his routine coming down here every day.”
Veteran Tamale began in 1946 at 33rd and Morgan streets. With a business partner, first-generation tamale maker Edmund Szczytko opened a butcher shop there and began making and selling "corn rolls" — seasoned ground beef rolled up in cornmeal.
In 1947, Ed bought out his partner and bought the building at 3133 S. Archer Ave. Using a special machine he built himself, he made thousands of tamales. His five kids hand-wrapped every one.
Bob Szczytko was one of those kids. He later raised his own children at Veteran Tamale, living in the apartment upstairs. As an older man with his own daughters, Mike Szczytko got to raise his own family there, too.
“It was awesome," Szczytko said. "They got to spend time with their grandpa."
“We had the playpen right there,” Carla said of her nieces' upbringing.
She pointed toward the desk where her father kept important documents and files. On a door frame, Szczytko recorded the heights of his daughters: Madison and Emma Rae, now 9 and 7.
The girls were disappointed when their dad told them the news.
“The older one loves the tamales,” Szczytko said. “The younger one just likes the corn meal.”
The Szczytko recipe — different from husk-wrapped Mexican tamales — has evolved over the years. It's a recipe that has set Veteran Tamale apart from Chicago's two other family-owned tamale makers: Tom Tom and Supreme.
Installing a new spool of string on the tying machine his grandpa built.
The family stopped using meat in the 1960s after inspectors with the United States Department of Agriculture hassled them. Veteran Tamale switched to spiced, textured soy protein cooked in lard, but ditched the lard for vegetable oil.
The final vegetarian recipe was ideal for Catholics abstaining from meat during Lent.
For many years, Veteran Tamale made money supplying those tamales to hot dog vendor carts all over the city.
“That’s what they did. They were unemployed. That’s what they did to tide them over. They got a little extra cash, and everybody ate good,” Szczytko said. “You can’t beat a hot dog on a wagon, but you can’t have a wagon anymore.”
The sidewalk eats business has largely dried up, pushed out by police crackdowns and hefty fines, although the first licensed food cart under a new law hit the streets in April.
Another batch, wrapped and tied.
Tossing a finished batch of Veteran Tamales: pic.twitter.com/0ppGX4Y7xN
— Ed Komenda (@ejkomenda) February 6, 2017
Veteran Tamale eventually expanded its business to sell steaks, hot dogs, Polish sausage, burgers, Italian beef and condiments in bulk. Their recent customers included neighborhood restaurants, churches, schools and backyard chefs looking to cater packed cookouts.
The corner business often pumped out 1,200 tamales at a time — three times a week — to keep clients happy.
Packing up an order of tamales.
Though the family plans to keep Veteran Tamale closed, there's a chance we might see them again someday.
"The family has to sit down and talk," Szczytko said. "We'll leave it as a cliffhanger."
Outside Veteran Tamale on Monday, Szczytko rolled a cart loaded with boxed tamales to the pickup truck of Juan Garcia, the cafeteria manager of a post office in Forest Park, there to grab his final order — 2,000 Veteran tamales, enough to stock the kitchen for a month.
“I’m sad, because I was happy to come in here and get 700 or 800 tamales a week,” Garcia said. “I hope they open somewhere else."
Mike Szczytko loads a batch of tamales onto the truck of Juan Garcia, a cafeteria manager.
The two men unloaded the boxes into the truck bed and said their goodbyes.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Szczytko said, shaking Garcia's hand. “I’ll let you know if we do something later ... I appreciate all your business all these years.”
