Chris Zucchero, owner of the local legend Chicago-based sandwich shop Mr. Beef, was driving from Chicago to his home in Minnesota – windows down – when we called.
“Can you hear me okay?” he yelled through his speaker phone. I could. In fact, there were very few audio issues during the near-three-hour-long phone call we shared. Turns out there was much to learn about the man behind the restaurant behind the culinary Emmy-Award-winning show set to premiere its third season this summer.
He had just attended the James Beard Awards the night prior. He doesn’t like sports. He likes to go antique shopping. He accepted my phone call right as he was exiting his local dispensary. His wife’s name is Kacey. They share two pit bulls named Vinny and Bailey. Growing up, all he wanted was to be a drummer in a band.
Mr. Beef has been serving Chicagoans hot Italian beef sandwiches (sweet peppers, spicy giardiniera, and all) for the six decades since the restaurant was acquired by Zucchero’s father Joe in 1979. Located in River North on Orleans and close to Erie, Mr. Beef served as the inspiration for The Bear, thanks to a longstanding friendship between Zucchero and The Bear showrunner Christopher Storer.
Storer has shared he wrote a lot of the script hanging out with Zucchero on the restaurant’s patio as Storer is an old friend of Zucchero’s – they’ve known each other since kindergarten. But when Storer first approached him about using his restaurant in 2021, Zucchero had no idea how much his life was about to change.
“When these Hollywood hotshots came to check out the restaurant, I had no idea what was going on,” said Zucchero. “They took me out to dinner, and I offered to pay.”
A majority of the pilot episode was filmed at Mr. Beef’s premises. Storer has cited Zucchero as part of the inspiration behind the character Richie, played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach. On top of clearing out the restaurant in its entirety, the crew would also paste “The Bear” over the “Mr. Beef” sign, inadvertently alerting the locals that filming had – yet again – commenced.
Zucchero spoke with TV Insider about his friendship with Storer, grieving his father’s death while filming Season 2, and the comparability of a television set and a restaurant.
First of all, it’s very cool how you and Chris Storer have been able to remain friends after all these years.
Chris Zucherro: That skinny, handsome prick. Part of me hates him because I’m like, “Oh you’ve turned my restaurant into Central Perk.” But on the other hand, it’s been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced ever. It’s been almost a cosmic experience. So I love him. I’ve always loved him.
I read somewhere that after the first season, your restaurant was receiving 800 sandwich orders a day. Are you guys preparing for a new wave of Season 3 fans?
I don’t know if we can ever prepare for it. We have a system that’s been there since 1979. Some of our guys have a hard exterior, though, and I tell them, “You guys gotta lighten up because these people don’t understand what this is. They don’t get it. They don’t know what the sandwich is. They don’t know how to order.” So we do need to prepare to be nice as far as the hospitality goes. My father who never ran a restaurant prior was also my employer growing up. So what I felt like he got wrong, I would try to do right. Like being a little nicer. But it’s a hard balance. You just don’t know what’s ever going to happen so you’ve got to kind of go into that place every day and just make do with whatever. There’s no way to prepare.
I’m sorry to hear about your dad by the way. That must have been difficult.
Thank you for saying that.
I was thinking it must have been special for him to see how beloved the restaurant was as the show was taking off and that Mr. Beef as a restaurant was receiving its flowers.
You know, my dad was a very hip guy for what he did. He was very into media. He was very into movie posters. You know, a lot of families especially Italian American families pretty much stop right at Frank Sinatra and white leather couches, but we didn’t grow up in that kind of world. But he was also kind of unaware of the gravity of what was going on. He was getting stem cell treatment at the time the first season was being filmed. He did get to see a part of it. He, unfortunately, didn’t get to see the second season’s insane response. I want to say I’m like an atheist or agnostic. I don’t know if I believe in any other world or power beyond, but I kind of feel like he died and then it was immediately followed by this weird, positive, crazy thing. I was with him pretty much every day in any capacity with Mr. Beef, so when he passed away it felt strange, and the response made it really weird. But I appreciate you saying we received our flowers because it feels like we got it on every level. I don’t know how much higher we can go.
And they were still filming at your restaurant at the time he passed?
Yes, but I wasn’t in that season, so they were calling me to come around, and I was like, “No I’m good.” But they were all very receptive when my father died, sending me stuff and some of them ended up coming to the funeral. Even Storer showed up, and he stopped filming and all that to come there. That’s a lot of money, and I was honored by that.
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Did you see similarities between you running your restaurant and Storer running his set?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Now I understand why it’s only a few weeks to make a movie or to do these productions, and then you’re off for six months. It’s a lot of work jammed into one deal. That kid – “that kid” referring to my dearest childhood friend who I love and adore that handsome, skinny prick – is under immense pressure, and I watch it from the time he arrives to the time he leaves. There are definitely similarities.
I’d say a difference is that you don’t necessarily get a six-month break from your “set.”
Yes, and I don’t have as many funds. Just like the industry in general. We have to go to work every day to make stuff happen. It’s a different thing in that sense, but there are similarities in the way Storer treats people on his sets that I try to do in my own restaurant. But you know, work is work. You have to get it done.
When did you start working at Mr. Beef?
I’ve been behind the counter since I was like four years old. Probably earlier. I can’t really pinpoint exactly when I started working there, but I can tell you that around 14 or 15, other than cooking the beef and slicing the beef, I could do everything else in that restaurant. It really became a full-time part of my life probably when I graduated high school because I pretty much spent every Saturday of my high school year there.
Did any other careers ever interest you?
I wanted to be a drummer. That was one of the only two things I’ve ever wanted to do, and then strangely I always thought I would try out. One of the reasons why I never had kids was because, for some reason, I thought I would become an actor… Or I thought the opportunity would arise for some reason. That was incredibly delusional though.
I think that was incredibly intuitive, arguably, given your cameo in Season 1 of the show.
Well, I have things to say about that, but I’m not going to say anything more than that.
I won’t press. I also read that you had not watched a single episode of The Bear. Have you held fast to that?
No, Kacey was busting my balls about it. She was the one that said, “Hey, you have to understand what’s going on.” But I can tell you this much: to keep in line with my “I’m not watching this show” thing, I didn’t really pay attention to the show while I was watching it. I was on my phone a lot. I don’t watch anything with food. I’m around food all day. I’ve never watched any of Anthony Bourdain’s stuff, and I love Tony. Tony was a great guy. He loved my father, he was a nice guy, and I never watched his stuff. I told him to his face one time. So I never wanted to watch The Bear or anything with Mr. Beef in it. Which is also why I’ll probably never read your article. No offense to you, you’ve been lovely, but you can just send it to my wife.
The Bear, Season 3 premiere, Wednesday June 26 at 9/8c, Hulu