Stanley Tigerman-designed Arby's in Streeterville is long gone but not forgotten

A burger and fries can set you back $24 at the upscale RL Restaurant at Chicago and Michigan avenues. And don't forget to tip.

You used to be able to get pretty full on that corner with a two-for-one coupon and just $1.99. But that was another time — 1980 — and definitely another place: A colorful, one-of-a-kind, postmodern Arby's, designed by the celebrated architect Stanley Tigerman, that once stood where the RL Restaurant is now.

I thought of the old Arby's last month when I wrote a column about White Castle joining other fast-food chains that are rolling out new and sober restaurant designs. "They’re more functional, though maybe a little less fun," I said then.

Built in 1977, but wrecked in the early 1990s, Tigerman's Arby's was indeed fun. A lot of fun.

The first and second floors of the narrow, four-story structure were glass, which invited people to look into the restaurant and see employees working and customers chomping — not to mention the vibrantly colored exposed ductwork and piping that bent and twisted about inside.

"The mechanical and everything else got colors," remembered the late Tigerman's wife, architect Margaret McCurry. "I mean it was actually a fun thing — very lively there. While it lasted."

The building was a sensation and even earned the Distinguished Building Award from the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

And with good reason. It was a transparent semi-chic little thing that was way different from the then-typical Arby's that sold roast beef sandwiches from a stand-alone building, surrounded by parking and built to resemble an Old West Conestoga covered wagon.

"[It was] an Arby’s restaurant disguised as a mini Centre Pompidou in which to consume fast food instead of art," mused Chicago writer, editor and architect Iker Gil.

‘He wanted it to really stand out’

Hard to imagine now that Chicago Avenue, between State Street and Michigan Avenue, was once a fast-food haven. There was a Jack-in-the-Box one door east of the Arby's and a McDonald's at 10 E. State St., which somehow still manages to hang on.

Amidst all this, Tigerman's building stood out. It was contemporary but not modernist with its white, porcelain enamel facade and curved interior spaces.

The facade's third-story bends inward, making way for a vertical ribbon of glass that exposed more of the building's colorful mechanical innards.

There was a wood-paneled dining area with minimalist-styled furnishings. A curved metal staircase led to the second floor.

In another lifetime, the building might've been an art gallery.

"He was creating something that wasn't historic [revivalism]," McCurry said. "And he wanted it to really stand out. When he did interiors, he'd often have piano curves. Of course he played the piano, so those curves were part of his psyche."

Gil said seeing the building after dark was a visual treat.

"[The] facade receded and disappeared at night, revealing the building’s guts through color-coded ducts, track lighting and piping," he said. "Red, yellow and blue communicated what the building was all about. It taught the patron how the sausage, or roast beef, was made."

Tigerman approached color and form in a similar way with his Illinois Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, built in 1978.

That building still stands at 1055 W. Roosevelt Road, but its original bright scheme of colors — devised by Tigerman to help visually impaired people find the library and navigate its interior — was ditched when a bank bought the structure. It's now owned by St. Ignatius College Prep.

‘Cult status’

The Arby's closed and the entire block was demolished and redeveloped for new restaurant, retail and hotel spaces. Despite winning the AIA award, the cleverly designed sandwich place is all but a footnote in Tigerman's long and acclaimed career.

A prolific writer and speaker, the architect seldom referenced the Arby's. Even those documenting his work skip over the project, even though it contained design elements found in his later buildings. And I couldn't find color images of the Arby's before this column's deadline.

An Arby's spokesperson didn't return a query for information about the building's history.

Tigerman died in 2019 at age 88.

"It didn't have a polemic, the way [his other works have], which is why it didn't appear in other publications," McCurry said. "It was a handsome modern building that was not part of architectural theoretical positions of the time."

But Gil said the restaurant now enjoys "an almost cult status."

"[It had] a clear graphic visual language that brings together high and low, practicality and surrealism, global chain and local uniqueness," he said.