So when I had the opportunity this spring to visit Alabama’s shoreline instead of Florida’s, I jumped at the chance to see what life was like on the northern side of the Gulf of Mexico. Would the path slightly less beaten provide the same summery perks Florida is famous for? I packed my camera and favorite straw hat and went to find out.

‘Bama bound

Getting there was surprisingly easy.

My friend and I flew into Pensacola International Airport from O’Hare International Airport, which took just over two hours on a full flight. Pensacola is typically the airport of choice because it’s cheaper and offers plenty of flights.

We picked up our rental and began the leisurely hour journey, passing through small towns and crossing several bridges as we drove parallel to the water. We quickly waved goodbye to Florida, heading over Perdido Pass into Alabama’s Orange Beach.

Orange Beach and its neighbor, Gulf Shores, are two small beach towns on Perdido Key with combined populations of roughly 22,000 locals — which swells to millions with annual visitors. With a strictly tourism-driven economy, 85 percent of the area’s real estate is vacation rentals — or about 15,000 hotel and condo units, according to Kay Maghan, public relations manager for Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism.

We stayed at Turquoise Place, a luxury resort along Orange Beach with spacious condos in two buildings. Our unit had a fully equipped kitchen, a full-size laundry room and an ocean-view balcony with a hot tub and gas grill. Elsewhere on the property were pools, a water slide and a lazy river.

After settling down, we had dinner at The Gulf, an outdoor restaurant and bar with walk-up service made of cobalt blue shipping containers. Its patio shares a sea wall with the gulf and showcases plush couches and string lights that pair perfectly with my spicy blackberry jalapeño margarita, mahi-mahi tacos and a half pound of chilled peel-and-eat shrimp.

We watched as the sun went down as a watercolor masterpiece and stopped for a nightcap at 8 Reale OBAL, a speakeasy bar that will cost you a small pirate’s booty. With drinks averaging $25, the swanky spot is concealed behind a storefront posing as a jewelry store. We entered a code — provided daily on its Facebook page — and walked through a heavy vault door. The copper ceilings and navy velvet chairs showed off a secretly bougie side of Orange Beach — one that allegedly lured in Morgan Freeman the day after we left.

Up-close adventures

We began the next day on the beach, which stays cool courtesy of fluffy sugar-white sand washed down from the Appalachian Mountains, known as crushed quartz crystal.

The shoreline glittered with shells, partial sand dollars and colorful umbrellas as gentle waves rolled in the distance. Across the gulf were various water activities, including fishing, boating and parasailing. We watched cunning pelicans soar past, holding massive, doomed fish.

The mood was calm and friendly; even at the day’s peak, it never felt overcrowded, rowdy or messy.

Next was our hourlong lesson with Sandcastle University. Using buckets, measuring spoons, a cup, a plastic knife, and a straw, our instructor, Catie, astonished us with her simple techniques for building a turreted tower. The basics were a door and windows; the frills were staircases and cobblestone etching. For a 34-year-old, this was exceptionally fun.

We stopped for a quick lunch at longtime mainstay DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen, known for its authentic Royal Reds — a premier variety of Alabama shrimp. Be prepared to twist a few heads off, but the buttery reward is worth it.

After some golden coconut shrimp and peppery au gratin potatoes, we began the 40-minute drive west to Fort Morgan, a seaside military fort built in the early 1800s and used during the Spanish-American War and both World Wars. A National Historic Landmark, it features spacious grounds with networks of connected rooms, tunnels and budding stalactites. The up-close access to history is amazing. In the distance, ships and oil rigs lay beyond the sea birds resting on cement blocks as waves splash against them.

We sought shade in the nearby Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge and took a relaxing 1-mile loop walk through the Jeff Friend Trail, which put us in the thick of a serene jungle. Surrounded by towering long-leaf pines, ferns and saw palmettos, we glimpsed only a tiny lizard, but heard a symphony of bird songs, squirrel chatter and plenty of mysterious fluttering from the bushes. Dirt trails led to a waterfront boardwalk before it curved into a lily-pad-filled bog.

The last stop for the evening was the lovely Jesse’s On The Bay. Upstairs, a fine-dining restaurant serves dry-aged steaks and fresh seafood. Downstairs, a bar called The Cold Hole serves cocktails.

Just steps from the bay, we watched the sun go down in a fiery blaze while sipping colorful drinks — the best way to end the day.

Cruising the coast

Saturday began with a free, heart-pumping 5-mile bike ride through Gulf State Park. Our tour guide, Corey, led us past grassy marshes, through ridges and across creeks. The oak canopies dripping with Spanish moss evoked the Southern gothic aesthetic you’d expect from Tennesee Williams.

In the evening, we sailed into the gulf on a yellow catamaran with Sail Wild Hearts. We enjoyed complimentary snacks and yacht rock as we savored our last magnificent sunset. A family of dolphins jumped beside us.

Before we left, we ate at Big Fish Restaurant and Bar — an unassuming fine dining gem on the end of a single-story strip mall — and CoastAL, a beachy brunch spot with fresh seafood, pastries and massive cinnamon rolls. I had been looking forward to Big Fish for its beloved sushi, which did not disappoint. Straightforward and simple, the cucumber salad, pork gyoza and classic tuna roll were everything I’d hoped for. Get there early or be ready to wait.

With phenomenal food, views, access to nature and soft beaches, plus all the Southern hospitality you’d expect, Alabama’s Gulf Coast was a lovely antidote for Chicago’s fickle spring. It was a well-balanced mix of commercial and local, hometown and upscale. I could have spent longer exploring the area and would happily return.

For those who can’t make it for a summer vacation, a trip in mid-April is also a good bet. The weather is perfect and there are fewer crowds.

Linze Rice is a freelancer.

Since then, embracing a Christmas birthday has been a struggle. As I got older, I learned that if I wanted the holidays to be tolerable, I needed to make my own magic happen. In my teens, I rebranded Christmas and my birthday into Birthmas — a celebration of both.

Now, I try to lean into Christmas as much as possible with a ceramic tree collection, tons of baking and holiday movie marathons. So if I wondered if Branson, Missouri — purportedly the most Christmassy of all Christmas towns — would meet my exceedingly high standards for merry-making.

I began planning a trip when, just days before my departure, tragedy struck: My sweet pit bull companion of 14 years, Bruce, died. Traveling seemed like the last thing I wanted to do.

But I wondered: Could Branson’s tidings of comfort and joy help heal the broken heart of an agnostic, 33-year-old Christmas kid? “I guess we’ll find out,” I thought as my friend and I boarded our plane to Springfield, Missouri.

O come, all ye faithful

I rolled in Nov. 2, two days after the Christmas season had started, as far as Branson was concerned. Halloween is considered their Christmas Eve.

In Branson, it’s an “unwritten rule that by Nov. 1, your Christmas decorations should be up,” said Amanda Stout, jack of all trades at the Sugar Leaf Bakery.

The city, nestled in the Ozarks, has about 12,000 residents, but that number swells to about 2 million visitors around the most wonderful time of the year. Chicagoans can get there via a two-hour flight into Springfield, Missouri, and then about a 45-minute drive. By car alone, it’s a little over eight hours.

“Branson in itself is a really small community,” Stout explained. “We have big things and we have the grand amusement things and all of that kind of stuff, but … we want you to walk through the doors and feel like you’re visiting a friend or that you’re coming to see family.”

At the Chateau on the Lake Resort, our home base for the trip, a stately facade opens to an opulent atrium filled with Christmas trees, three glass elevators and views of all 10 floors. Lighted garland-adorned arches guide you to waterfalls, live birds chittering from patina cages, and a long rope from which a certain jolly red-suited gentleman shimmies down.

The highlight was the mouthwatering cookie village created with exceptional culinary artistry. Stained glass Fruit Roll-Up windows adorn the graham cracker church, as Tootsie Roll and Nutter Butter dogs scamper around candy cane street lamps.

A re-creation of the Chateau itself sports a vanilla wafer-tiled roof, pretzel balconies, and jelly bean stonework. Around each edible edifice are tiny string lights. Altogether, 300 pounds of powdered sugar, 120 pounds of egg whites, and 600 pounds of candy, cookies and other goodies form the sweet village, created over the course of 175 combined hours. It’s worth a visit even if you don’t stay at the resort.

More yuletide trappings await at the Titanic Museum Attraction, a building designed as a half-scale of the real ship containing hundreds of artifacts from the vessel, its passengers and crew — plus a stunning $1 million re-creation of the grand staircase.

The museum was decked out in lovely Christmas garb: a tree in the lobby with soft red teddy bears, garland, bows and poinsettias throughout. For such a historic tragedy, its holiday spirit was certainly intact.

I was greeted by Phoebe Head, a nearly 20-year employee whose passion and reverence for her job were infectious and immediately put me at ease.

In the evening, we went to one of the city’s three official tree-lighting ceremonies. In the background was a surprisingly familiar site: the Branson Ferris Wheel — or as Chicagoans knew it until February 2016, the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, resplendent with its red gondolas and LED light display of peppermint swirls and snowflakes.

At the top of said wheel, with the little courage I had to look out at the horizon, I could see a sea of darkness with an electrifying neon river running through it. A silent, holy night in Branson.

On the second day of Branson …

We headed out to Wolfe Mountain where we had a date with Snowflex tubing — whizzing down a 400-foot hill at a rate of nearly 30 mph while sitting in an inner tube. To put it lightly, we absolutely did not want to do this. But I couldn’t think of an excuse believable enough to get out of it, so we each grabbed a tube and followed our guide up a slow-moving sidewalk to the top.

Our lives flashed before our eyes as we stared up the runway of artificial, turf-like snow. Brush your fingers across it, and you feel like you’ve rubbed against the hard side of Velcro.

A countdown of “3 — 2 — 1,” a shove, and down we flew, screaming our faces off but having the thrill of our lives. Once we reached the bottom, our plan of doing it just once and leaving was out the door. We scampered, with childlike glee, back up the hill for another go, and then another.

If the exertion leaves you hungry, grab a snack at the aforementioned Sugar Leaf Bakery nearby. The bakery decorates for Christmas with sleigh-riding snowmen and elves, colorful strings of ornaments, and evergreen garland hung throughout.

Stout’s specialty is her mother’s yule log recipe, a 28-inch confection of rolled chocolate cake and icing. Customers can buy a slice or order a whole cake for pickup. Stout says they usually make up to 50 yule logs per season, and each takes about six hours to make.

“We have not only just our local following, but we have a really great tourist following,” the head baker explained. “Those people we now consider family, because when they come here for a six-day stay, we probably see them 10 times.”

As customers make repeat visits, “We get to see how their families grow, too,” she said.

Where the treetops glisten

For the ultimate holiday immersion, don’t miss Silver Dollar City, an 1880s-era theme park that shares ownership with a portion of Dollywood and hit No. 1 on TripAdvisor’s list of U.S. theme parks this year.

The dazzling “An Old Time Christmas” display — best viewed at night — lasts through December. Over 6.5 million lights, 800 trees, 600 wreaths, 15,000 yards of ribbon, and over 3 miles worth of garland laced throughout the park transform it into a winter wonderland.

Near the entrance, the Midtown area shimmers top to bottom with snowflakes, angels and glowing neon building facades. At the center, an 80-foot tree sparkles with millions of color options, straight out of a Lifetime holiday movie. Take in twice nightly parades, performances of “A Dickens’ Christmas Carol” and seasonal wassail, hot chocolate and buffets of prime rib and turkey.

If that’s not enough, another worthy holiday spectacle is the Shepherd of the Hills Trail of Lights display, a drive-through holiday light experience that weaves you through the 160-acre mountainside property, showcasing millions of colorful bulbs.

We drove under a tunnel of snowflakes, along a whirl of “jumping” reindeer and past dozens of glowing Santas, elves and horses.

Go tell it on the mountain

Our last stop was for Sunday brunch in the Keeter Center at College of the Ozarks. Located in Lookout Point, it had panoramic views of the mountains and of the Branson strip. Just beyond the sleeping cows, you could still see the Branson Ferris Wheel.

The campus aims to be its own self-sustaining community, with a grist mill, a dairy pasture, a meat-processing plant and a hydroponic greenhouse — all run by students.

The Keeter Center is a spacious lodge with a 15-room hotel, gift shops, a cafe and bakery, and an expansive, elegant dining room. Students in white waiter jackets — most of whom are studying culinary arts or business — whisk guests to their tables, which stretch as far as the eye can see.

Students take turns managing the dining room and all its facets — from the menu to the staff to the cooking. Lettuce grown in the greenhouse is brought back to the kitchen, milk from the school’s herd of 60 dairy cows is churned into ice cream in the campus creamery, and hogs and beef cattle move from farm to plate, reappearing as smoked meatloaf and sweetly glazed ham.

Hotel rooms decked for the holidays showcase student-made stained glass panels, a lit Christmas tree, a stone fireplace and the school’s signature Turndown Cookies — an oatmeal-chocolate chip-pecan cookie served on a decorated plate with cold glass-bottled milk nightly. Students provide the turndown service, bake the cookies and do the housekeeping.

For 90 years, the campus has also been churning out fruitcakes — the idea of a former home economics teacher who first baked six cakes with her students for friends of the school with the hope of generating donations. Now, it’s a serious operation, with mail orders zipping from Branson to happy — or hapless, depending on your take — recipients across the country.

The reason for the season

On my flight back to Chicago, I reflected on the past three days. The “snow” hill, the lights, the Titanic — what did it all mean?

Branson is undeniably a winter holiday destination. The whole town seems to take pride in the season, particularly in the sense of time-tested traditions. It wants to become one for you, too.

But traditions sometimes change, willingly or not.

What was once the Grand Palace Theatre is now an aquarium with an eye-catching disco ball octopus wrapped around the building. The Navy Pier Ferris Wheel is now the Branson Ferris Wheel. It still holds all the memories, the first dates, the first kisses, and the engagements experienced by Chicagoans, but now visitors to Branson get their turn. Alcohol is still a rarely advertised vice, but weed is legal.

New traditions can be good. That’s what I’m trying to tell myself on this first Christmas without my beloved Bruce. Maybe repeat visits to Branson will become a new yearly ritual for my friend and me.

Linze Rice is a freelancer.

You turn and walk down a small city block’s worth of lush and rocky jungle facades, complete with decorative monkeys, birds and butterflies. An animatronic crocodile sits in a small pond surrounded by coins imbued with good luck wishes. Just past a giant spotted red mushroom, you enter through the gift shop as Taylor Swift plays overhead.

Welcome to the jungle.

Though you’re over 3,500 miles away from the Amazon, you’re now immersed in the last Rainforest Cafe in Illinois. And in this moment, that’s good enough.

As a kid, I loved this place. Coming from the cornfields of DeKalb County, a meal at the Woodfield Mall location felt like the closest I could ever possibly get to a rainforest. For my family, it was expensive, and therefore quite a treat. And, like many, I sat by the crocodile — terrified but thrilled — tossing in my own good luck coins.

Though gaudy, a trip here is certainly memorable. Nearly everyone I know can offer comments and recall stories about their visits. So when the Woodfield Mall and iconic River North locations became extinct in 2020, it felt like the era of uber-kitschy and over-the-top dining experiences was truly over. I’m sure some were happy to hear it, but for a kid who grew up in the middle of nowhere, my inner child was certainly sad.

But then I realized there was still Gurnee Mills.

The 19,000-square-foot restaurant, about a 45-mile drive from downtown Chicago, was installed in June 1996, and I had never visited it. How would it be going now, at 33 years old? Would it be as traumatic as seeing a band of malfunctioning robots a la Chuck E. Cheese? Or had it abandoned its thematic roots for a more upscale, but sterile approach, like the Rock-n-Roll McDonald’s?

As I rounded the corner, I quickly discovered it was neither — it was very much the same. Like the remote Amazonian territory of Vale do Javari, the cafe’s aesthetics and operation were largely unchanged. Its customs and traditions appeared to have remained intact and undisturbed by time or outside influence.

The journey begins in the Retail Village, home of Tracy the Tree — an ornate tree with a moving face that speaks every 30 seconds. She shares facts about the rainforest and reminds you there are many fun toys available for purchase. Her expansive branches and canopy spread across the ceiling, intersecting with flowering vines and toucans.

After a few minutes, our table was ready. We made our way toward a huge aquarium archway that was empty of sea creatures but still bright and bubbling.

An almost overwhelming sensory wave washed over me as I stepped across the thick green and brown patterned carpet, weaving through booths encased in artificial rock formations.

We were seated along the border of the dining room next to a trickling water feature, with a view of LensCrafters across the hall. Our server, a lovely young man named Timur with three dazzling studs in his ears, was attentive and friendly from start to finish.

We started off with a round of drinks — a Heineken 0.0 for him and a $14 piña colada in a souvenir glass for me — and an appetizer, Korean fried chicken lettuce wraps for $17.

As we waited, I took in the scene: Above me and just to the right was a deep-blue starry sky painting that glittered and spouted off shooting stars. The entire ceiling is covered in greenery, flowers, birds and chimpanzees. Support beams throughout the dining room are designed to look like ancient trees.

In the corner sits a streak of four tigers who roar and cock their heads. Elsewhere a large pair of leathery elephants squeal, while at least six gorillas and orangutans top rocky bluffs or emerge from the walls. The animatronics appeared in good working order and the dining room was clean and well taken care of.

As was the case over 25 years ago, about every 20 minutes there’s a simulated thunderstorm during which the animals cry out as lightning, thunder and drizzling rain fill the room.

Our appetizer and drinks started out bold. The piña colada was refreshing and straightforward, and the lettuce wraps were crunchy and sweet with a nice punch of heat — until I hit a fresh ring of burning chili pepper. My daiquiri heroically stepped up to help cool me off.

My favorite dish was the $20 China Island Chicken Salad, which had mixed greens topped with grilled chicken, Mandarin oranges, sesame seeds, carrots, crispy rice noodles, green onion, wonton strips and the restaurant’s China Island dressing. The dressing was lightly creamy and coated the lettuce well enough that there wasn’t a soup of leftover liquid at the bottom. It was a light, but flavorful salad with lots of gratifying crunch.

I washed it down with a Cheetah Rita, the restaurant’s premium margarita. Bracing for an overly sweet cocktail, I was pleasantly surprised that it was well-balanced and tasty.

For entrees, we split the Taste of the Islands seafood platter and beef Amazon Fajitas.

The aquatic smattering included the fan-favorite Caribbean Coconut Shrimp, as well as mango habanero-glazed shrimp, jerk-seasoned tilapia topped with pineapple salsa, Caribbean rice and green beans for $32. I appreciated the size of the coconut shrimp, but its sauce companion was not vibing. The glazed shrimp were sweet and hot with a nice snap, and the best part was the tender and slightly spicy tilapia. Their version of Caribbean rice and beans paired well with the meal, but the once-frozen green beans had sadly been zapped of any life or flavor.

The fajitas, $28, came with four tortillas, a sizzling plate of beef strips and veggies, rice and black beans, and a boat showcasing all the usual trappings: grilled onions, bell peppers, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, cheeses and pico de gallo. The beef was well-seasoned, a bit overdone for my taste, but my husband was pleased. You also had the option of getting a mix of chicken and beef for the same price.

For old-time’s sake, I also got the dino nuggets kids’ meal, taxonomically named Jurassic Chicken Tidbits. The three-chamber plastic plate held seven hot and crispy nuggets, above-average fries for a kids’ meal, and two orange slices — one of which promptly went into my margarita. They were comparable to nuggets found in the frozen aisle but were satisfying nonetheless and hit the nostalgia factor hard.

Though the dining room was only about half-full at the night’s peak, there were still 13 individual birthdays celebrated. Servers usually came out with a Sparkling Volcano sundae and clapped along to a birthday chant.

The confection is a mountainous chocolate brownie cake served with an inner core of vanilla ice cream and completed with a huge dollop of whipped cream, chocolate and caramel sauce. Its piece de résistance is a real sparkler on top — a distinguishing feature of this location, as online reviewers have reported silvery tassels at some other restaurants.

We got one, too, but didn’t make our server sing a song. The dense chocolate cake tasted like a slightly heartier Cosmic Brownie.

Overall, the food was better than expected — but that’s not really what you’re there for.

You pay a premium on the dining in exchange for an experience. It’s a place where every square inch is an indulgent feast for the eyes, where you can almost get lost in the wilderness of it all — at least until another patron’s Lids bag breaks the fantasy.

I was amazed that kids were still making birthday traditions here. There were even a few other childless couples celebrating and having dinner, maybe also recreating a nearly lost part of their childhood.

The Gurnee holdout is a Chicagoland rite of passage that’s still alive, waiting for your hope-filled coins. It’s a relic of an almost bygone era that can still be relished, as if visiting a living museum of itself. It’s a more-than-gratuitous novelty that has played host to families for nearly three decades — a cheesy escape from reality, where you can forget about your worries and your strife.

And, like the real rainforest, it should be enjoyed while it lasts.

Linze Rice is a freelance writer.

The event will feature three stops in Humboldt Park, West Town and Andersonville and include alcohol-free drinks as well as opportunities to socialize and support local businesses. Though the booze-free bar hop is free, those interested must still register online.

“Our goal was to keep it as affordable as possible so that there are no barriers to coming out,” said Carrie May, founder of the nonprofit Chicago AF and a certified recovery coach. “Everybody is welcome.”

The first leg of the crawl, a Sober Speed Friending session at Bendición Bottle Shop, 2540 W. Division St., begins at 3 p.m. and is already at capacity with a waitlist. That portion of the event will include several rounds of quick meet-and-greets, as well as drink samples from Spiritless, a maker of nonalcoholic spirits and cocktails. Attendees can still check in there to receive a wristband and a map of the event.

At 5 p.m., bar crawlers can head to In Good Spirits, 858 N. Ashland Ave., a newly opened sober bar, social club and bottle shop where attendees can sip on booze-free cocktails and meet others who are sober and sober-curious.

The crawl’s last stop begins at 7 p.m. at Eli’s Tea Bar, 5507 N. Clark St., where karaoke is on the menu alongside a variety of tea drinks, lattes and lemonades.

“Everything that we do with regards to Chicago AF is just to help model that you can have fun without alcohol,” May said. “You can connect, you can laugh. It doesn’t matter if you’re sober. It doesn’t matter what you are. We’re just not going to drink for that evening.”

May said she and Khadi Oluwatoyin, the New York City-based founder and executive director of Sober Black Girls Club, met while both working in the recovery space and had always wanted to collaborate on an event together. When the pair realized they’d never heard of a sober bar crawl before, they set a plan into action.

For May, the event is especially purposeful in that she is looking to make her community more diverse. While she says she sees a range in age — attendees to Chicago AF’s events range from 18 to 80 — and gender, attendees are mostly white.

“It’s been a major mission of mine for (Chicago AF) to be diverse and inclusive of everybody — all ages, all backgrounds, all everything,” May said.

Her group is beginning to see a more diverse population, but, she said, “I’m not settling until we open up even more.”

Those who are newly sober may be wondering, “What’s the point?” or thinking to themselves, “I can’t do it” when it comes to re-imagining a new social life, but it just takes time, said May, who has been sober for seven years.

“I was one of those people that came into sobriety thinking I would not have fun again,” she said. “That’s a total myth. It just takes practice, everybody’s so awkward. And then when you keep doing it, it just becomes second nature, and it’s OK. We don’t have expectations on people, just show up.”

Linze Rice is a freelance writer.

When Grandma Nadine returned from her senior group trips with handfuls of exotic brochures, Shattuck only needed to read a trifold pamphlet to transport around the world. When she saw one for Dollywood — an entire world dedicated to the glamorous country singer whose records her mother devotedly played at home — the destination became one of her most coveted travel dreams.

“They wouldn’t really bring back paid souvenirs; I think this was just their way of sharing the experience,” said Shattuck, now a McHenry County resident. “I remember learning about Dollywood pretty early on. I had no personal experience with resort theme park areas like this — it just kind of seemed like this cloud-in-the-sky, magical place.”

Now 33, Shattuck is headed to Dollywood for the first time in July with her wife and their daughter — her ticket was a Christmas gift that ties into a family reunion.

“I just want to experience it, and take it in, and go with an open mind,” she said.

Shattuck is far from the only northern Illinoisan with plans to visit the Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, park. When it’s time to take a break from working 9 to 5, thousands of Chicagoland residents are packing up and heading south to Dollywood.

Approximately 33,600 people across northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana visited the park last year — over four times the Chicagoland visitors from just three years prior. And it’s not just Chicago; according to park data, total visits have grown 76% in the past five years. The 165-acre theme park was voted the No. 1 theme park in the country and eighth-best in the world in 2022 by TripAdvisor.

The park also takes into consideration the number of visitors to the Smoky Mountain region, which saw an estimated 700,000 tourists from the Chicago region in 2022, according to park data. For 2021, the National Park Service reported the Great Smoky Mountains National Park had over 14.1 million visitors, making it the most-visited national park in the country.

So, what is so magical about Dollywood? I ordered some rhinestone fringe jeans, took a trip to speak with Ms. Parton herself and experienced the area through a Midwestern lens.

Traveling, man

Getting to Dollywood and the greater Smoky Mountain region requires a bit of a concerted effort. Making no stops, it’s about a nine-hour drive from Chicago to Pigeon Forge. A nonstop flight from O’Hare to Tyson McGhee Airport near Knoxville clocks in under two hours, plus an additional hour of driving time.

Colin Taylor, 41, a grant writer from Oak Park, and his wife and two sons, then ages 6 and 9, drove to the Smoky Mountains and Dollywood for spring break last year.

“There’s not a lot of national park sites in our area; that’s probably the most drivable one from the Chicago area. I think that was a big piece for us,” Taylor said. “Being able to do a one-day driving trip to get there, and then having the national park there and a really nice theme park so close together … that was the big factor.”

Shattuck and her wife and daughter, 7, will also be driving. Her extended family rented a 16-person Airbnb property in Pigeon Forge for the reunion.

Gliding along the highway under a sweater-weather gray sky in a rental car after my flight, there was virtually no traffic, and drivers were slow (by Chicago standards). Just beyond the churches, homes and farms that speckled the route was the sight of the Smoky Mountains, beckoning my arrival in the distance.

A sentimental stay

The last town you pass through before making it to Pigeon Forge is Sevierville, Parton’s hometown. Born in 1946, Parton grew up there in a two-room log cabin with her parents and 11 siblings — a re-creation of which was built by her brother and decorated by her mother as an attraction at her theme park. The small town is flanked by murals paying homage to the famous singer, as well as a statue of her at the county courthouse.

If Sevierville represents Parton’s roots, then it only takes a 15-minute drive to see her blooming garden. The DreamMore Resort & Spa, a six-story, 300-room hotel that opened in 2015, could not physically be more different from her humble homestead, but it certainly embodies Parton today.

The stately resort is surrounded by trees and slowly reveals itself as you sail up the long driveway. It demonstrates the country estate aesthetic with its black-gabled roof and long communal porch balconies. As with most things Dolly, the building is adorned with sweeping golden butterflies to add a little extra zhuzh.

Entering the lobby feels like walking into a house. There are living room spaces on each side of a double staircase and a balcony that faces a two-story wall of windows that look out to the pool and mountains.

Oversized booths and couches await in communal spaces outfitted with warm fireplaces and Cracker Barrel-style cloth checkerboards. At the bottom of the stairs, reading nooks are built into the walls, and I was delighted to see more than one vacationing kid posted up with a good read. The landing is also the location of Parton’s “Dream Box” — a glass-encased wooden box containing a never-released song she wrote in 2015 called “My Place in History,” to be released in 2046 on her 100th birthday.

To the left is the Song & Hearth restaurant and lounge, which offers a breakfast and dinner buffet of Southern favorites and house specialties, as well as a bar.

One pro tip for morning diners: Add a mini portion of Dollywood’s (rightfully) famous Grist Mill cinnamon bread for $4.95. You can get a larger size for a higher price at the park, but you’ll almost certainly have to wait in a substantial line.

The dinner options vary throughout the week, with a classic Southern buffet featuring ham, barbecue or blackened pork loin at the carving table, and sides like fried green tomatoes and corn nuggets. Fridays and Saturdays feature the Prime Time buffet menu, which offers a smorgasbord of prime rib, a pulled pork slider station, fried chicken, hush puppies, a build-your-own-grits station, and a doughnut wall.

My recommendation any night is the Stone Soup, a belly-warming ham hock and vegetable soup. The recipe is named after a tradition started by Parton’s mother, which involved sending her children out to pick the very best rock to assist with soup that day.

According to Parton, the brood would collect and wash their selections, then her mother would figure out which child needed some extra love or attention and choose their stone to season the pot.

From afternoon to night, the lobby features different performers, such as a bejeweled violinist, guitar-singing duos and acoustic solos. In the evening, the atmosphere is almost like a DIY show or house party, but with country music in a mansion, and everyone brought their kids.

Upstairs, the resort’s standard rooms are pretty straightforward, providing the typical amenities you’d expect in a modern hotel, plus a few Dolly-centric postcards. What can distinguish an OK room from a better one is the view, which can be of the parking lot or the slope of a lush mountain. My room gave me a pretty lovely landscape of a green rolling hill covered in trees like a thick moss, conjuring a misty fog each morning.

A day in Dollywood

A major perk of the DreamMore Resort is that it offers pickup and drop-off shuttles into the amusement park, which I would highly suggest, because parking gets very full very fast. On the park’s opening day this year, zealous visitors were lined up and waiting before the gates were unlocked.

You enter at Showstreet, one of 11 park areas whose names pay homage to the traditions of the Smoky Mountain area and Parton’s family. The area is Parton’s idea of a perfect street, with shopping, entertainment venues, gardens and aromatic food.

Colorful building facades and a wide promenade guide you along the South’s version of old Hollywood. This is where you’ll find amenities like stroller and wheelchair rentals, ride measurements (get measured to obtain a wristband showing which rides you qualify for), lost and found, and Timesaver passes.

Theaters like Dolly Parton’s Celebrity Theater offer live entertainment, or you can snag the famously massive 25-pound apple pie for about $230 (or a slice for $20).

The nearby Jukebox Junction is a jump back into Parton’s upbringing in the 1950s, featuring attractions named after real places such as the Pines Theater, where she first performed for a paying audience, and Red’s Drive-In, a nod to the Sevierville-based Red’s Cafe. The Lightning Rod wooden roller coaster, popular with coaster enthusiasts, runs along a steel track and launches riders from 0 to 45 miles per hour in just 20 seconds as it ascends 20 stories before facing a 165-foot drop at a maximum speed of 73 mph.

Coaster junkies will also want to check out the FireChaser Express and Wild Eagle in the Wilderness Pass area, as well as the Mystery Mine and Thunderhead in Timber Canyon.

Rivertown Junction is where you’ll find the My Tennessee Mountain Home re-creation, which offers a glimpse of the star’s early life through plexiglass windows. The detailed decor is full of Easter eggs, like the wall calendar with the singer’s birthday circled. Perhaps not the usual theme park attraction, it’s certainly one with more heart and character than any other I’ve experienced.

You’ll find more history in The Village area, where the Dollywood Express train carries thousands of passengers each day through a 20-minute scenic tour of the park, including a view of the Smokies.

The authentic coal-fired steam train is Dollywood’s oldest attraction, dating back to 1961 when the park first opened as Rebel Railroad, and rightfully remains one of the most popular Dollywood stops to this day.

Craftsman’s Valley holds another classic attraction, the Blazing Fury dark ride-indoor roller coaster combo that first ran in 1978 when the park was operating as Silver Dollar City. This area is also where you can ride the (too-thrilling-for-me) Tennessee Tornado, as well as visit the Eagle Mountain Sanctuary and Robert F. Thomas Chapel — two unique departures from the typical theme park experience.

Dollywood and the American Eagle Foundation have partnered together since 1991 to provide a sanctuary for eagles that are not able to live in the wild. Here, they have access to a 1.5 million-cubic-foot outdoor aviary that mimics their natural environment, while giving spectators an opportunity to view the elusive bird up close.

Just steps away is the Robert F. Thomas church, which has roots dating back to 1973. It was later dedicated to the minister-doctor who delivered Parton and her siblings. Like most other things here, it’s saturated in local history.

The newest area of the park is Wildwood Grove, a kids-oriented, family-friendly land themed with storybook fantasies that intertwine magical trees, dragonflies, birds and bears.

There, I took a spin on the surprisingly wild Mad Mockingbird, which sees two-person blue bird carts rise and fall as they spin around a spoke. It’s similar to Disney’s flying Dumbo ride — except you control the movement of your car by using a wing as a sail, causing you to twist and turn side to side, which is certainly where the “mad” part of the ride comes in.

When I asked what her favorite part of the park is, Parton said she’s “partial to the family show,” but added, “there’s nothing about this park that I don’t love.”

Parton said she loves seeing families flow through all summer, followed by an influx of couples in the fall who come for the romantic late-season festivals. Add in hearty meals, live glassblowing, and enough singing and dancing to fill your cup, and “there’s really something for everyone,” she said.

“That’s one of the things I love about it, and I think that’s one of the things that makes it so popular,” she mused. “There’s so much to do and so many things that appeal to so many people.”

Feeding the masses

Whether you come hungry or work up an appetite, the food options are plentiful. Aaron Banks, director of culinary services, walks an average of 7 to 12 miles a day overseeing the park’s slate of full- and quick-service restaurants and snack shacks — about 30 total.

In a season, Dollywood can run through over 380,000 pounds of French fries, about a quarter-million slices of bacon, nearly 400,000 biscuits and more than 95,000 corn dogs, according to the park.

“Dollywood’s food is very unique,” Banks said from a sunlit table at the Front Porch Cafe. “We can do a lot of different things. If you go to some of your theme parks today, it is really chicken tenders, pizza, burgers. We have that, but every restaurant doesn’t have that.”

Food is served family-style at Aunt Granny’s Restaurant, a sit-down diner named after Parton’s nieces’ and nephews’ nickname for her. Servers of all ages are dressed in the style of an old-school country grandma, complete with a floral-patterned bonnet. Guests choose two or three meats and four sides for the table, and each person gets a drink and a dessert.

I went with the pot roast, a fan favorite, and agree with those who love it. Tender and full of flavor, it was one of my favorite dishes during the trip. The fried chicken was also top-notch, with its uber-crunchy clusters keeping the inside perfectly juicy.

Reservations for Aunt Granny’s fill up rather quickly, so I suggest putting your name in as one of your first actions at the park.

Chris Seabrook, one of two Dollywood executive chefs, was brought on in 2021 after a veteran career working as a corporate chef.

“They allowed me a lot of freedom here to be creative with actually taking the park to a whole other level,” Seabrook said. “What I’ve learned is Tennessee is a whole different South. I lived in Georgia for a good five years. And the cuisine between Georgia and this part of Tennessee is very different.”

As he seeks to elevate the theme park food, adding vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options, he also looks for ways to update traditional favorites.

“We have a slew of people that come and travel in here from all different states that have different tastes,” he said. “So in my mind, I’m thinking, ‘How can I round it out to actually make sure that the palate is pleased by everybody?’ Because there is something for everybody here.”

Creations with his stamp are found all over Front Porch Cafe, like the fried chicken sandwich added in 2022 that has become a bestseller. The cafe goes through about 300-375 per day, with the bacon-onion jam burger close behind.

His vision is to fully integrate Front Porch into a true farm-to-table restaurant, as well as continue introducing new foods, “but it’s a work in progress trying to change the palates of people,” said the native New Yorker.

Other new items from Seabrook this year include three varieties of loaded baked potatoes, ribs and fried chicken — all found at Miss Lillian’s BBQ Corner in Craftsman’s Valley.

Whatever you do, I urge you to try the Grist Mill cinnamon bread. Made inside Dollywood’s working 1982 grist mill, the first to be built in Tennessee in over 100 years, this should be high on your must-do list, as the line quickly creeps out the door. As you get closer to the counter, you see bakers preparing the dough with sweeping brushes of butter and dunelike mounds of cinnamon and sugar.

The elements congeal into a warm, gooey, succulent bread with a sweet, crunchy crust and a sticky cinnamon syrup that develops at the bottom, perfect for dipping. Like a loaf-pan-shaped monkey bread, the treat easily pulls apart for sharing — which will admittedly be difficult. You can add white icing or apple butter, but I felt the surprisingly non-sweet icing actually hampered the incredible taste of the candied bread.

New and upcoming

Currently underway until June 11 is the annual Food & Flower Festival, a springtime experience marked by sculptures rendered from hundreds of thousands of flowers and plants, as well as creative food items. This year’s menu includes grilled shrimp mac and cheese, a pretzel crab melt, berry and honey funnel cakes, beef bulgogi nachos, and a Cuban sandwich with mojo sauce.

A new addition to the park for 2023 is Big Bear Mountain, Dollywood’s longest coaster, clocking in at 3,990 feet. Part of Wildwood Grove, the roller coaster will take riders on a journey that includes three launches, a pass through a tunnel and a waterfall, bunny hops, and high-speed turns that top out at 48 mph during the nearly two-minute excursion. Perfect for coaster enthusiasts as well as those who prefer tamer experiences, the bright-orange Big Bear Mountain is designed to give passengers excellent views of the park, sans the heart-stopping loops.

This fall, Parton will also open a new property adjacent to the DreamMore called the HeartSong Lodge & Resort — a cabin-themed hotel with 302 rooms, each with a mural depicting a magical wilderness scene and many with private balconies.

The resort will feature an outdoor pool with a walk-up bar, an acoustic music room, a 195-seat restaurant and lounge, and 26,000 square feet of space for private events. The main decorative feature is the four-story, 4,000-square-foot atrium lobby, containing an equally tall stone-and-brick fireplace.

Next year, visitors will get to step inside The Dolly Parton Experience, an interactive museum meant to take parkgoers through the star’s life, career and imagination. The permanent exhibit will replace the former Chasing Rainbows Museum and include family mementos and keepsakes from Parton’s career, and narration from Parton.

A host of opportunities

Workers who have been at the park for 30 years are recognized with large posters throughout the grounds, illustrated coyly to blend in with the rest of the old-timey decor. Each sign mentions the person’s name, the year they began working there, and a reference to a job they held.

All park employees, from seasonal to full time, are also eligible for free or partially funded tuition at 30 universities. As of fall, about 75 employees were taking classes, with the number growing steadily since the program began in 2022, according to the park.

“We’ve had wonderful people all through the years, but I think it has to do with how you treat people,” Parton told me. “I think it instills a great deal of pride in the people that work here that we care enough about them to want them to do good.”

The care for employees translates into a pleasant experience for parkgoers, especially those who hail from the city where labor rights were born.

“The staff were incredibly courteous, incredibly, like more-than-you-would-think noticeably courteous,” Taylor recalled. “Usually you notice someone that’s rude, but we noticed that people were just really polite, really efficient, really great.”

A familiar voyage

Outside the resort, Pigeon Forge is like the Dells of the Smokies. Commercially, it checks all the same boxes: strips of discount souvenir shops, carnival rides, bizarre attractions, and excursions. Instead of taking one of the Dell’s famous Duck Tours through a lake, you could take a Parton-affiliated Pink Adventure Tour through the national park.

While there are other celebrities in town — Paula Deen, Guy Fieri and Jimmy Buffett all have attractions here — it’s Parton who dominates. In addition to Dollywood, Dollywood’s Splash Country, the adventure tours and the DreamMore resort, Parton has teamed up with Herschend Family Entertainment on dinner show experiences such as the longtime Dolly Parton’s Stampede, Hatfield & McCoy, and Pirates Voyage, plus The Comedy Barn and Frizzle Chicken Farmhouse Café.

I spent several childhood vacations making the three-hour drive to the Wisconsin Dells, staying at a themed hotel and getting caramel-covered apples and old-timey photos taken. In this way, the commercial aspect of Pigeon Forge felt familiar. Neon-colored buildings, eccentric billboards and windows filled with sun-bleached T-shirts stand out in the foreground of rolling, vibrant greenery and miles of nature and untouched land.

The tourist economy is an essential life force for the region. While some businesses are kitschy, they also provide jobs for many locals, something Parton has been adamant about supporting throughout her career.

I had the pleasure of meeting some of these fine folks when I attended one of two nightly performances at Pirate’s Voyage, akin to a pirate-themed Medieval Times. The show consists of a “blue versus red” concept in which each side of the room roots for a specific pirate and their crew.

The menu, for alcoholic drinks anyway, didn’t offer prices, but I went with a mysterious blue drink I saw bobbing about the room. The Blue Mermaid was $15 and came with a skull-shaped plastic souvenir glass. Considering a can of beer at Wrigley Field isn’t much cheaper, I swallowed the price and sipped on it the entire show.

The servers wear smiles the entire time as they dole out “babys” and “honeys” as rapidly as they delivered our meals, all while working in full costume, hauling trays of food and pitcher-fulls up and down the arena-like seating. Their relentless work ethic is well worth good tipping — I recommend bringing cash.

Equally impressive were the performers themselves, many of whom came to town from other prestigious venues when their old shows were shut down during and after the pandemic. They plunged into the pool waters below with the grace and confidence of a swan, matching in elegance and superior in personality. The acting from all parties was big and exciting, with singing, fire, rope climbing, sword fighting and acrobatics at every turn.

Dinner consisted of a creamy (emphasis on the cream) vegetable soup, and a plate with a large fried chicken breast, a small slice of ham, a baked potato wedge, a half-ear of corn and a biscuit. A warm towelette is distributed before moving on to the peach turnover dessert. It’s more than enough to eat, but it’s not really about the food, anyway — the main course is the show.

Rainbowland

I was curious to know how Shattuck and Taylor, both self-described liberals, felt heading into Tennessee to spend tourist dollars during a time when the state was receiving publicity for the passage of recent anti-LGBTQ laws.

The political environment was a put-off, Shattuck said, and something she and her wife always weigh when considering a vacation.

“When Rachel and I travel, we always factor in, No. 1, our safety traveling somewhere,” Shattuck said. “Sometimes I say that to people and they’re like, ‘What do you mean? It’s 2023, it doesn’t matter.’ And that is simply wrong, because we are not safe everywhere.”

But navigating the line between red and blue is something Shattuck is used to facing head-on in “a very conservative, notoriously red” McHenry County, she said.

Taylor said that while some parts of the general area sported confrontational messages, Parton’s theme park was notably friendly.

“When we were in the Pigeon Forge area, down by the main strip there, there is an overwhelming amount of Confederate-friendly signage, ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ signs on loud trucks, a lot of Trump paraphernalia,” Taylor recalled. “But when you’re in Dollywood itself, it’s a very LGBTQ-friendly environment. It’s a much different vibe once you’re in Dollywood.”

Tennessee and its people are nuanced. Often portrayed as devoutly backwoods, Parton said her home state is full of shiny gems — you just have to be willing to unearth them.

“A lot of people that are from the bigger cities, you know, they saw the movie ‘Deliverence,’ they think, ‘I have to squeal like a pig to come here,'” Parton joked with me during an interview. “Well, we’re not that. We have these wonderful resorts, we have the wonderful safe places to stay … there’s wonderful things to see in this whole area.”

Parton said she takes pride in making everyone who comes through the gates feel welcome and at ease.

“I just feel like the park is blessed,” she added. “I’m just so proud that we’re able to have a great place where people can come feel safe and feel good to where they can bring their families and have a place where they feel like they’re at home.”

Always love you

I was tasked with seeing if Dollywood is still relevant today and happily discovered that it is, perhaps more than ever. It’s a shrine to some of the very things Tennessee legislators have been wagging their fingers at lately: fabulous dresses, wigs, and passionate musical performances.

“When I heard ‘Dollywood,’ I was like, OK, maybe it’s just kind of like a little kitschy place that’s dedicated to this country singer — but it really is more like a really, really nice, clean, theme park,” Taylor said. “It’s a pretty impressive operation. Honestly, I was kind of blown away.”

It’s fun, varied and immersive. It’s a smaller and more manageable Disney World enveloped in the enchanting scenery of the Smokies, honoring Dolly’s roots, traditions, and all the people who have made herself and the park what it is today.

It’s Parton who gave Shattuck, a shy kid from the Midwest, the confidence to go to her high school Halloween dance dressed as the star. She also recently unwrapped an old Dollywood souvenir her other grandma, Leona, purchased when visiting the park many years ago. It was a “Best of Dolly Parton” record, bought for $2.75.

“In a way it sort of feels like a connection to these two grandmothers of mine,” she shared. “I get to go as an adult and think of them and wonder about the joy that they experienced there. But the other thing, too, is I think places like this really put people in the moment. You know, when you’re in theme parks like this, it’s very easy to forget about all the other stressors in the world, and in your life.”

The Southern icon said she loves the Midwest, too, but “one of my favorite times ever spent was in Chicago” during the three-month filming of her 1992 movie, “Straight Talk.” Between shoots, Parton said she would spend time exploring Chicago’s parks, dining out and generally enjoying the city.

“It was one of the most beautiful times I’ve ever had,” she recalled. “It was the summer, it was like really good weather. It snowed the day after we wrapped and everybody says, ‘Oh you don’t want to be here in the winter.’ But I had the most beautiful time; stayed in the greatest little hotel. We just had the best time in Chicago. The people were great.”

I grew up in DeKalb County, in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village of Kingston. I can remember the fantastical daydreaming born from the isolation of rural living. In my childhood bedroom, I read “Coat of Many Colors” over and over and dared to dream of something bigger. At Dollywood, I took the opportunity to reflect on my own Southern roots, which stem from the coal-mining communities of Kentucky.

I understand now the magic of Dollywood is the magic of Parton, herself — brassy, fun and wholesome. Equal parts down home and old Hollywood Boulevard.

What could the future hold for Dollywood in Parton’s wildest fantasy? You never know, she said. Maybe an aquarium, or a year-round water park, or Dollywoods across the globe, she mused. With creative minds and imaginative people, the possibilities are limitless.

Though Dollywood may be in the holler, it’s not hollow. It’s not a soulless ride factory like Six Flags. The park is a compelling page-turner of her life’s story, and as always, she encourages you to read.

If you go

Dollywood: One-day tickets for adults start at $89, up to three-day tickets for $119, which can be used across a five-day period. Tickets for children (ages 4-9) and seniors are $79 for one day, or $109 for three days. Season tickets, group passes, and add-ons are also available. The park’s 2023 season continues through Jan. 6, 2024. 2700 Dollywood Parks Blvd., Pigeon Forge; 800-DOLLYWOOD; dollywood.com

Pirate’s Voyage: Tickets, which include dinner, start at $70 for adults and $35 for children 3-9 years old, but premium seats closer to the action can reach $100 and $65, respectively. Shows typically available at 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. 2713 Parkway, Pigeon Forge; 865-505-2469; piratesvoyage.com

DreamMore Resort & Spa: Standard rooms from $149 per night, plus tax. For a family of four between Memorial Day and Labor Day, rates start at $379 per night. Park admission packages for Dollywood and Splash Country available. 2525 DreamMore Way, Pigeon Forge; 800-365-5996; dollywood.com/resort

Linze Rice is a freelance writer.

A well-cooked beef, be it Italian or Kobe, is often one of our sincerest expressions of love. Even Jewel packages steaks in plastic pink heart-shaped containers for Valentine’s Day. The pandering is not only accepted, but celebrated because we feel seen as a people who are hungry for love … and also just hungry.

Throughout the city’s history, there has been no shortage of establishments that provide both the romance and the sustenance we crave. From upscale dining to mood-setting patios and frankly bizarre menus, we took a look at a few of the restaurants diners have flocked to for an intimate meal.

Everest

For nearly 35 years, one of Chicago’s most romantic fine-dining restaurants could be found at the summit of 425 S. Financial Place: Everest. Head chef Jean Joho opened the Michelin-starred Everest in 1986 and laid his claim to the 40th floor of the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed building, which also houses the Chicago Stock Exchange. Rightfully, his Alsatian-inspired, farm-to-table dishes became renowned not only here, but around the world. If food is a language of love, then Joho was surely fluent. The selection of over 1,600 Alsatian wines, paired perfectly with each meal, was an added chef’s kiss.

To experience the four-star French fare, diners had to first ascend 39 floors, then reach the peak via a private elevator to the restaurant. There, the climb’s payoff was evident — particularly for romance. With stunning sunset views, candlelight, fresh flowers and attentive service, it was easy for lovers to feel as if they were basking on cloud nine. For this, Everest often earned the distinction of being among the most romantic spots in the city. And who wouldn’t want to prove their love by climbing a modern-day mountain with such sweet rewards?

Everest closed at the end of 2020, but its legacy of exquisite cuisine and warm atmosphere is set in stone.

Waterfront Cafe

Compared with the apex of romantic fine dining that was Everest, the Waterfront Cafe in Edgewater is much more grounded — but no less lovely or off the beaten path (literally). The seasonal outdoor restaurant could not be more hidden; it’s found next to a dead-end behind the Berger Park Cultural Center, with no signage to offer clues.

But once discovered, the Waterfront feels like a tropical destination far away from the shores of Chicago. The patio is surrounded by tall greenery and generously decorated with brilliantly colored flora. The lake becomes a vast ocean. Still, sightlines all the way to downtown skyscrapers hint at your true location. At sunset, the sky melts through watercolor tones into an endless black sky that makes the perfect path for passing planes. Only a sandy walking path divides diners and the water, and it’s up to the strung lights, Tiki torches and moon to provide evening light. Nightly live music, like jazz and classical guitar, keeps guests entertained but not overwhelmed.

Here, upscale dining isn’t the name of the game — ambience and privacy are. But the seafood rolls, summer salads and tropical drinks keep customers plenty satisfied. Using a former coach house as its kitchen, the Waterfront slings seafood classics like blackened Cajun shrimp, brown butter crab, and lobster rolls. It first opened as Dawghaus Cafe in 2007 serving only snacks, then bloomed into the Waterfront in 2009. Its menu is limited, allowing lovers ample opportunity to focus on each other.

Berger Park Cultural Center, 6219 N. Sheridan Road, 773-761-3294, waterfrontcafechicago.com

Palmer House Hotel

Of course, no list of historically romantic Chicago spots would be complete without mention of the Palmer House. Its very creation is the manifestation of love — a wedding gift from Potter Palmer to his bride, Bertha Honoré.

The hotel first opened on Sept. 26, 1870, but burned only a year later in the Great Chicago Fire. It was rebuilt in 1873, and then later expanded in the 1920s, incorporating an elegant art deco theme. The lobby’s luxurious aesthetic exudes opulence. It is an astonishing array of grandeur lined with warm-lit candelabras, flashes of Louis Comfort Tiffany — including two winged statues and decorative embellishments — a grand staircase, and gorgeous elevators designed to reflect a peacock’s plume. Its most famous feature is an astonishing 21-panel ceiling fresco painted by French artist Louis Pierre Rigal depicting scenes from Greek mythology. It is the pinnacle of elegance, romance and fine detail, and therefore a great excuse to wear something fancy, if you so like.

In the main hall, couples can enjoy cocktails, small plates and a limited menu of entrees at The Lobby Bar at Lockwood, which features house specialties such as the Palmer House 1871 Whisky Sazerac and Palmer House Brownie Old Fashioned — appropriate because the hotel also invented the brownie (which you can get for dessert). Its bar list also offers several nonalcoholic cocktails and provides plenty of options to keep an amorous evening going under the Grecian sky. The hotel can also accommodate private dining, including a table for four in a wine cellar and incredible mezzanine views for parties or events — perhaps for an anniversary party or wedding reception, in the tradition of the venue’s inception.

Palmer House Hotel, 17 E. Monroe St., 312-917-3404, palmerhousehiltonhotel.com; lockwoodrestaurant.com

Café Bohemia

For some, finding love is really all about the thrill of the hunt. And throughout its 50-year run, those people may have wound up having dates at Café Bohemia — a restaurant at 138 S. Clinton St. that boasted “Chicago’s Most Unusual Menu” for serving dishes like tiger steaks and hippopotamus.

Owner Jim Jankek opened Café Bohemia in 1936 after taking over for his father, Joe Baseck. The restaurant’s menu was huge, offering eight-course dinners of over 60 entrees that included fresh sweet corn year-round. Many of the recipes were created or inspired by his Czechoslovakian grandmother.

While relatively tame dishes like hefty steaks, chops, ribs, veal, venison, fresh fish and fowl were the usual fare, Janek would also supplement his menu with exotic meats such as elephant, pheasant, lion, bear, beaver, elk, buffalo burgers, broiled moose and sheep. Janek would say he’d estimate the ferocity of the upcoming winter by how much fat the bears had that year. The heads of some of these entrees wound up as mounted decor.

Able to eat without the judgment of prying eyes, diners, therefore, loved visiting Café Bohemia. Outside, elk would sometimes be hung, causing traffic jams from gawking passersby. Inside, the restaurant was somewhat posh, somewhat safari. A renovation of the interior in 1965 designed by Warren Black saw the installation of “deep red fabric and stained glass (to) create a colorful and handsome interior, and a fresh red rose at each table” to give a “final pleasant” feel to the atmosphere. Additions included spindle dividers, cushy armchairs, paneling, and “dramatic red leather banquettes.” Most, but not all, of the mounted heads were removed.

To reach the restaurant, diners could call upon its white Cadillac limousine service, which would retrieve those staying at Loop hotels. A limo bearing the Café Bohemia flag would fetch customers free of charge and offer them a menu to peruse, as if studying a map before being dropped off in the wild.

The destination was an offbeat, adventurous and somewhat terrifying concept that fascinated diners for five decades — truly a relic of an older era. While its wild game offerings provided interesting fodder for the time, they only made up a small portion of the menu. Today, the ethics of such a food program are questionable, but at the time it was a novelty. Crisp duck with wild rice became the fan favorite, and by 1970, the establishment had served its millionth duck. Janek also increased the size of his porterhouse steaks by an ounce each year — at its closing in 1986, the steak was a dizzying 86 ounces, or well over 5 pounds. Yes, it was weird — but its charm is that it was something different, maybe even a bit scandalous. And what’s more romantic than flirting with your animal instincts.

Fondue Stube

Located in Chicago’s historically Jewish Far Northwest Side neighborhood of West Ridge is Fondue Stube, a French-concept restaurant with a German name and Japanese American owner. What’s more Chicago than that?

Since 1972, the fondue eatery has been housed within a low-key (and very parking-friendly) commercial stretch of Peterson Avenue, though it can be easily spotted by the pot of melting cheese on its maroon awning. Since the 1960s, Chicagoans have had an obsessive attraction to fondue restaurants for romantic and special occasions, perhaps because it involves the couple doing something hot together. But it’s also the type of place Chicagoans want to go to feel a sense of tradition or to celebrate a special occasion, like a date or anniversary.

“Fondue is a specialty item,” Carol Hiyama Martorelli, whose family took over the establishment in 1977, told the Tribune in 1980. “You’ve got to love fondue to visit the restaurant, since that’s all we’ve got on the menu.”

And Fondue Stube’s customers love it, indeed. It supplies the right mood with low lighting, deep red walls, and eclectic, vintage charm that says supper-club-meets-fondue-diner. Though it shares the same concept as other fondue spots in the city, such as the venerable Geja’s Café, it distinguishes itself with uncrowded seating, better parking, affordability and classical music overtures.

The menu offers cheese fondues in Swiss, cheddar, muenster, and cream cheese lox, served with French bread and apple cubes. Classic fondue dinners come with garlic bread and salad topped with homemade dressing (that customers have requested to “buy by the tubs”). While the Romeo and Juliet option may offer the most romantic name (although the ill-fated couple’s ending was anything but) the best option is the Sinfonia Eroica, which includes Swiss cheese fondue, followed by a sirloin beef fondue served with fresh vegetables and dipping sauces, and finishes off with a chocolate fudge fondue finale, complete with fresh fruits, angel food cake and marshmallows. (Knowledgeable servers offer the tip of roasting those right after the chocolate is lit.)

The place-mat menu is divided into préludes, encores, and finale con spirito, where you’ll find drinks such as the Nutcracker Sweet, Rhapsody in Booze, The Unfinished Symphony, and the Too Hot to Händel. These are a nod to one of the restaurant’s early owners, Steve Kaye, who won a piano scholarship from Roosevelt University and studied at the American Conservatory. He saw to it that for many years Fondue Stube would be as known for its classical music as it was for its mutual melting. Live music from piano, flute and harp duos and trios played for customers, rattling off compositions by the likes of Bach and Vivaldi. A baby grand piano (that has since moved on) was a centerpiece of the room.

It was a classical music destination for serious artists and appreciators, including violinist Jaques Israelievitch, once the co-concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Even Beethoven’s birthday was celebrated with performances by the Windy City Music Ensemble. While there’s no more live music, classical music is played over the speakers.

The change in tune hasn’t deterred loyal customers, who refused to let Fondue Stube’s owners retire in 2010. After an announcement was posted on its website that Valentine’s Day 2010 would be its last waltz, a new message from Martorelli later replaced it saying that she received such an ovation from diners that she decided to stay open. Now, over 50 years later, the melting pot that is Fondue Stube remains a bright spot on Peterson Avenue, waiting to become part of your love story.

Fondue Stube, 2712 W. Peterson Ave., 773-784-2200, fonduestube.com

Linze Rice is a freelance writer.