River North’s Hubbard Street these days is a frenzy of bars and restaurants — and the party people that flock to them. Back in 1984 it was a much different story. Unlike today, there was limited commercial business and by 6 p.m. the area was a ghost town.
But that didn’t stop Lettuce Entertain You’s founder Rich Melman, Executive Chairman Kevin Brown, Managing Partner Steve LaHaie and Executive Chef/Partner Yves Roubard from envisioning a grand Hubbard Street restaurant where fresh seafood and oysters from both coasts would dominate the menu.
Now 40 years and more than 10 million oysters later, Shaw’s Crab House continues to attract a regular clientele of locals and visitors alike, garnering a new generation of fans in the process.
To honor its 40th anniversary, Shaw’s is hosting a variety of events at the restaurant April 7-11, including an oyster and champagne reception and a performance by Chicago blues legend Big Dog. On April 11, a full day of celebrations is planned starting at noon and continuing through 11 p.m. with roaming oyster shuckers as well as tableside martini and caviar service. Throwback menu items, such as clams casino, crab-stuffed shrimp and frog legs, will be featured alongside staples like lobster roll and key lime pie. To drink, there’s a special anniversary Old Fashioned and a caviar and oyster martini.
All this might not be taking place if it wasn’t for Brown’s early job prerequisite of being close to the beach. That aspiration led to working summers while in college at Phillip’s Crab House in Ocean City, Maryland. Post-graduation, he moved to Chicago to work for Lettuce and became Melman’s first full-time hire. It was during a conversation at Le Grand Café (now Mon Ami Gabi) that Melman queried Brown about his previous hospitality experience.
“I told him about Phillip’s and how I became mesmerized by the restaurant business working there. Rich said, ‘Why don’t we look into doing a seafood restaurant,’” says Brown.
A hunt for real estate led Brown to the large brick building at 21 E. Hubbard Street, formerly a newspaper warehouse. Initially, he was shown the space on the second floor, which opened onto Wabash Avenue. It was the 1,400 square feet on the first floor, however, that caught the partners’ interest. “We walked in, and it was magic,” says Brown. “It wasn’t a great part of town back then, but it felt right.
Next up on their to-do list was finding a name for their new restaurant. After going through all their and their family’s last names as potential monikers, it was decided that the maiden name of Brown’s wife, Kristi, sounded the best, and Shaw’s Crab House was born. (A photo of Kristi, who passed away in 2019, hangs prominently in Shaw’s main dining room.)
In December 1984, Shaw’s Oyster Bar opened. Originally, the more casual half of the restaurant, which features a large L-shaped bar in the center of the room with wood booths on two sides and a smattering of high-top tables throughout, was intended for lunch only, serving salads and soups with the eventual addition of the restaurant’s now signature crab cakes. As demand grew, so did the menu and hours.
During construction of the main dining room, local artist Thomas Melvin was hard at work on a mural in Shaw’s entryway. The Art Deco-style artwork included iconic Chicago landmarks alongside grand cruise liners. (An image from that mural is on Shaw’s bottled hot sauce.) To garner interest in those pre-social-media days, tours were sometimes given of the under-construction dining room and painting process of the mural to Oyster Bar guests.
“It was the best publicity we could have possibly done,” says Brown of the pre-opening buzz it created.
Another factor aiding in the restaurant’s early success was the $1 parking fee Brown negotiated for customers in the large lot across the street. (A towering Marriott hotel now occupies that space.)
In April 1985, Shaw’s main dining room opened. The handsome 250-seat room features white tablecloth-clad tables and red leather booths. Wood-accented walls are adorned with paintings and photos of fish, fishing paraphernalia and mounted fish here and there. Hanging from the wood-beamed ceiling are globe-like light fixtures.
“Shaw’s is a little bit of a step back in time, yet it’s still current and fresh,” says Brown. “A guest said to me once that Shaw’s feels like a warm blanket.”
Other milestones followed. Shaw’s annual Oyster Fest began in 1988 and ran for 28 years. In 1989, Shaw’s become the first restaurant to serve locally made Goose Island beer on tap. Weekly live blues music in the Oyster Bar was launched in 1997. A second Shaw’s opened in 2000 in Schaumburg.
An enduring feature at Shaw’s has been the sourcing of top-quality seafood, often working directly with fishermen, a practice that wasn’t often done back when the restaurant opened.
“To me, quality first has been the guiding principle of Shaw’s,” says Brown. “We always emphasized letting the seafood speak for itself.” To drive the point home, “It’s the quality” is written on the back of every menu.
It’s a philosophy that continues to work. Take, for instance, Shaw’s charred sashimi tuna, a throwback menu item that’s making a repeat appearance for the anniversary. For the dish, raw tuna is marinated in a mixture of olive oil, soy sauce, black pepper and onion. The fish is then grilled for a few seconds on each side before it’s thinly sliced and served with wakame. A simple sauce made with mirin and soy sauce allows the fish to be the star of the dish.
Then there’s the crab-stuffed shrimp. For this throwback dish, a butterflied shrimp is topped with a hefty dollop of Blue Crab that’s combined with celery, onion, red pepper and a touch of mayonnaise. For its reappearance, the plating was recently changed with the five crab-shrimp combos now resembling mini rabbits.
Then there are Shaw’s standards that can never leave the menu, such as lobster bisque, New England clam chowder and the lobster roll, which is made with 3.5 ounces of lobster meat. The chopped seafood salad pairs Alaskan snow crab, shrimp and lobster with a mixture of lettuce and vegetables. Two dressings, an Italian vinaigrette and a classic Louis, finish the dish.
Another constant at Shaw’s has been its many long-term staff members, both front- and back-of-the-house employees. Senior Oyster Bar Bartender Joshua Keesecker has been at the restaurant for 26 years.
“You come to Shaw’s and you feel like you are joining a show already in progress with personality and a moveable feast,” Keesecker says. “The staff is as much a representation of Shaw’s as the building and decor.”
“We’ve had a focus on quality from the beginning and not just in the things that we serve, but in the people that we hire,” says Executive Partner Bill Nevruz, who started at Shaw’s as a floor manager 25 years ago. “That puts us in a pretty good place to have longevity overall.”
Shaw’s Crab House Raspberry Pie
A Shaw’s menu staple, this pie has been on the menu for 20 years.
Yield: 1 pie
INGREDIENTS:
FOR THE CRUST
• 8 oz Unsalted Butter
• 2½ c Flour
• 1 tsp Sugar
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• 6-8 tbsp Ice Cold Water
• 1 Egg (for the egg wash)
FOR THE FILLING
• 2 lbs Frozen Raspberry
• 5 tbsp Cornstarch
• 1¼ c Sugar
• ½ Lemon
DIRECTIONS:
FOR THE CRUST
1. Add the flour, sugar and salt to the bowl of your food processor.
2. Cut butter into cubes.
3. Turn the food processor on low speed and add the cubes of cold butter one at a time while the food processor runs until all the butter is added and the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
4. Add the water slowly as the food processor runs on low, just until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
5. Dump the rough dough onto the counter and divide the dough into two disc shapes and wrap each one separately in plastic wrap, placing it in the fridge to chill for 45 minutes or overnight.
FOR THE FILLING
1. Add the raspberries to a bowl, along with the cornstarch, sugar, salt and lemon juice. Mix together until raspberries are well covered.
2. Set the filling aside while you prepare the crust for baking.
GENERAL/ASSEMBLY
1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Remove the chilled pie dough from the fridge and let it sit for about 10 minutes before rolling.
3. Roll out one of the balls of dough into a large circle using a rolling pin. Add a generous amount of flour to the rolling surface and to the rolling pin, to prevent sticking and cracking.
4. Peel the rolled out dough on the counter surface gently by rolling it backwards onto the rolling pin.
5. Transfer it to a 9-inch pie plate and gently press the dough into the bottom of the pie plate and over the edges (try for a 1-2 inch overhang if possible).
6. Add the raspberry filling to the pie crust and smooth out the top.
7. Repeat the rolling out process with the second ball of dough, rolling it into a flat circle, just larger than the pan. Place it gently over the filling, letting the excess hang over the sides.
8. Trim any dough that hangs over the edge of the pie to 1-2 inches past the edge. Tuck any overhanging dough under and into the pie plate to create a clean edge.
9. Use a knife to make a hole in the middle of the pie the size of a quarter. This will help the pie vent and steam to release without cracking the top of the pie.
10. Beat the egg and brush it lightly onto the unbaked crust.
11. Dust the crust with the coarse sugar and bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Courtesy Shaw’s Crab House
He also credits Shaw’s ability to make guests feel like they’re somewhere else as part of its durability.
“We are not stuck in a time, but we are timeless and there’s a difference,” Nevruz says. Rather than make grand changes that might feel jarring, implementing subtle but enduring ones throughout its years has been a standard practice at Shaw’s.
Nevruz recalls not too long after he started, a TV was installed in the Oyster Bar. A curtain was put in front of it as initially it was only to be on during Cubs and Bears games. It didn’t take long for more broadcasts to be featured. But, he adds, “It took us another 25 years to get three more TVs.”
The addition of sushi 22 years ago to Shaw’s menu was another big change. Brown recalls some initial pushback he got from his partners.
“It was verging on blasphemy,” he says. But on its debut day, Shaw’s sold more sushi than oysters. “When you’re buying great quality seafood, it’s just another way to showcase it,” he says.
Finding seafood that is both sustainable and a good value has become a challenge for seafood-focused restaurants like Shaw’s. When Alaskan King Crab was no longer an option, the restaurant found a replacement from Norway. In addition to availability by the leg, the Norwegian Red King Crab is also served whole with an elaborate tableside presentation.
Over the years, Shaw’s has seen its fair share of celebrations and celebrities. Nevruz recalls after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010, team members along with legenday singer Jimmy Buffet, who was in town for a concert, were hanging out in the Oyster Bar after hours drinking out of the beloved trophy.
Another enduring Shaw’s memory for Nevruz: He met his wife, a then fellow co-manager, at the restaurant more than 20 years ago.
“The tricky thing when you have a restaurant that’s 40 years old is the guests want you stay the same, but they also want something new and exciting,” says Brown.
“It’s fun for me to walk through the restaurant, especially in the Oyster Bar, and hear young couples talk about how they just ‘discovered’ a new place. I don’t want to tell them, we’ve been here for a long time.”