Located at the corner of E. Cermak Rd. and S. Wabash Ave. between the McCormick Place convention center and Chinatown, White Castle # 16 remains the best-surviving example in Chicago of the buildings built by the White Castle System of Eating Houses, Inc. White Castle was founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, and its chain of popular hamburger stands soon spread to over a dozen cities, including Chicago, by 1930; the company is considered the “father” of the many fast-food chains that transformed American eating habits and streetscapes in the twentieth century.

White Castle was the first restaurant chain to popularize hamburgers. Formerly a disreputable “carnival” food in the early twentieth century, hamburgers became the defacto “American” sandwich in the 1920s, largely due to White Castle, and remain so today. White Castle is significant for its pioneering and much-copied use, among restaurant chains, of distinctive-looking programmatic architecture; a visually-reinforced cleanliness in operations through its use of white-glazed brick (and later porcelain-enamel-clad steel panel) exteriors and stainless steel interiors with open kitchens; a standardized menu and service featuring tasty “take-out” food that was high-quality while still inexpensive; and extensive newspaper advertising and outreach to middle-class families.

White Castle #16’s white-glazed brick exterior, with its crenelated forms and detailing, inspired by Chicago’s Water Tower, exemplifies the company’s pioneering use of standardized and visually-distinctive architecture as “bricks-and-mortar” advertising.

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