THE closure of Chicago’s oldest restaurant has thrown the Windy City into an identity crisis as locals lament the disappearance of its legendary past.

Customers have been queueing for three hours in freezing weather for a last taste of Wiener schnitzel and beer at The Berghoff before the GermanAmerican restaurant closes tomorrow after 108 years.

“I think I speak for a great many Chicagoans when I say I’m sorry to see it go,” Richard Daley, the city mayor, said of the family-owned establishment that displays the first liquor licence issued by the city in 1933 after Prohibition.

Its closure was announced by the founder’s grandson as Chicago was mourning the loss of two other iconic institutions.

The 127-year-old Marshall Field’s department store is being renamed Macy’s after its parent company was sold. And the City News Service, the feisty Chicago news outlet that inspired the film The Front Page and produced such graduates as the author Kurt Vonnegut and the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, is due to close.

“The shuttering of the Berghoff can’t be shrugged off,” the Chicago Sun-Times declared. “It continues the process of disconnecting the dots that form the city as we know it.”

The Berghoff began life as a humble tavern, founded by Herman Joseph Berghoff, who emigrated to America from Dortmund in 1870. He and his three brothers used a family recipe to brew beer in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After having a booth at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 to pitch their product, they opened a bar in the city.

The Berghoff sold beer for a nickel and threw in a free sandwich. But Prohibition’s alcohol ban led the family to turn the bar into a restaurant.

For decades, they served beer and corned-beef sandwiches to an all-male clientele — until seven women protested in 1969 against the “men only” policy, demanding to be served.

The “Chicago Seven” ate at the restaurant after being charged with inciting anti- Vietnam War protests during Chicago’s tumultuous 1968 Democratic Party convention.

Herman Berghoff, 70, the founder’s grandson, and his wife Jan, 68, are shutting down because none of their four children wants to take it over. “We share the sadness that many feel,” Herman Berghoff said. “It’s been an honour to be part of the fabric of Chicago.”

“You just don’t get places like this any more,” said Peter Schauer, 65, a German immigrant and Berghoff regular for 40 years. “It really reminds you of the old country. It is solid.”

The Berghoffs’ daughter, Carlyn, who runs a catering business, plans to turn its dining rooms into banquet halls. But she will still offer weekday lunches at a café in the basement and open a new bar. The family also intends to publish a book of the restaurant’s closely guarded recipes next year. Customers will get a chance to buy a piece of The Berghoff — 350 items of memorabilia will be auctioned on Saturday.

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