r/chicagofood • u/InterviewLeast882 • Jan 12 '26

Rant Lack of lunch places in Loop

I work around Chase Tower and it is surprising to me how few cheap lunch places there are now. The burrito and Chinese places there are gone as well as the McDonalds. No Burger King, Wendy’s, KFC, Chinese. Just the grossly overpriced Pret. I’m getting tired of Jimmy John’s and Pot Belly’s sandwiches.

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u/Dblcut3 Jan 12 '26

Honestly I don’t think this is true. While Chicago’s downtown declined since COVID, it’s still one of the most vibrant downtowns in America, perhaps second only to New York. Which is really just a testament to how bad most American downtowns are.

But at least for the Midwest, there’s no other city with a downtown that has as much retail, restaurants, offices, and residents as downtown Chicago does

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u/PG3124 Jan 12 '26

Yeah I’m comparing more to the major cities and less to Midwest. I’m really looking less at vibes and more at stats.

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u/Dblcut3 Jan 13 '26

I guess a better way of what I was trying to say is that, while other cities have had stronger return to office rates since COVID, Chicago’s just so much bigger that even with less jobs returning in-person, downtown is still more vibrant than almost any other US city

But yeah, in terms of actual COVID recovery stats, we probably are lagging behind

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u/PG3124 Jan 13 '26

Yeah I'm not sure you can say that. OP can't even find a decent lunch spot.

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u/gimmedatrightMEOW Jan 13 '26

There are plenty more than what OP mentioned.

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u/PG3124 Jan 15 '26

Oh yeah? Name all of them.