Rosebud on Taylor’s new status, as Taylor Street Italian restaurant staple shifts to ‘speakeasy,’ gives rise to precious memories

It was the end of an era, but it erupted into a blast from the past!  

Open menu, please!

A week ago, Sneed tipped the news that the legendary Rosebud on Taylor Italian restaurant — once the “red sauce” destination for the glitterati, glam, sports gurus and the mob since its opening in 1976 — was shifting gears, becoming a special events space in the new year.

Arrivederci! Times had changed. So had the surrounding Little Italy neighborhood. The iconic Rosebud flagship no longer would be open to general walk-in dining after New Year’s Eve. 

Frank Sinatra’s photo would still hang on the wall. Everything would stay in place, no remodeling. But the venue would morph into Rosebud: The Speakeasy, available for parties of 10 to 250 people. 

“The place has too much history to actually close,” says Rosebud founder Alex Dana, whose flagship spawned nine Rosebud restaurants over the past 50 years. 

Once a ring-a-ding-ding destination for such disparate celebs as boxer Jake “The Raging Bull” La Motta, Sinatra (who loved his “red sauce”), Andrew Dice Clay (who liked to tell his bad jokes); Oprah Winfrey (who’d pay service to her “diet” by tossing broccoli into her cavatelli); then-young actress Meg Ryan (who wanted to be a singer and appeared off a Chicago movie set and read a book); and Madonna (who’d make calls on Rosebud’s public payphone).

The restaurant’s renown as a harbor of famous flash and big cash might have ebbed since its pre-Millennial heyday, but Dana, who had expected a soft closing with little hype, says: “New Year’s Eve turned into the greatest holiday we’ve ever had at the place. It was a wowser!  

“It was rockin! It was like I went to bed and woke up back in 1976-77, when the place began to morph into magic.”   

Dana says the holiday evening started with a unexpected line outside the restaurant on Taylor Street at Laflin Street that included:

Groups taking pictures next to the 2011 “Alex Dana Way” street sign.

• A crowd so big that more waitstaff had to be called in.
• A group so hungry that more red sauce had to be quickly brought in from other Rosebud restaurants.
• A clientele so foodie-smart that people were requesting old Italian recipes.

The Saturday morning before New Year’s Eve and hours after the “closing” was tipped in this column, “Dinner reservations began coming in like Santa’s mail,” Dana says. “A switchboard to log a tsunami of comments and New Year’s Eve reservations would have been helpful because the phones wouldn’t stop ringing, bringing tall tales of family nostalgia.”

“The restaurant triggered memories from older clientele who wanted to share relationships they had formed here,” he says. “They shared how parents had brought them or how they courted their wives here or how they got their divorce papers served here while dining with their new significant others.” 

Then, there were the celeb calls.

“It was so beautiful to talk to Joe Mantegna, a Chicago native, ribbing me about our days at the restaurant,” Dana says. “And I’m told Alec Baldwin, who used to come here with actress Kim Basinger, his ex-wife, also sent his regards.

“But mostly it was from people who had been here before … over the years … with their kids.

Inside the restaurant, guests posed or photos under the huge photo of Sinatra next to his table.

“It was knee-deep at the bar, and the barstools were spinning,” Dana says. “Haven’t seen that for a long time. It was like everyone was coming home, talkin’ old times.

“What a night. It was a wowser. It was back to the neighborhood like it had been. ”

At midnight, “Everyone seemed to clink glasses at the same time with an old Jerry Vale song playing in the background. Everyone drinking wine, whispering and singing, taking home bags filled with Rosebud’s signature large portions — a tricky reminder to come back to us every time they opened their refrigerator door.”

I’ve known Alex Dana since he built his 1976 flagship, when Chicago actor Robert Conrad held court while starring in the the hit TV series “The Wild Wild West” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” when singer Tony Bennett would show up with his over-the-top toupee and eat alone. It was a place to table-hop, crack jokes and get red sauce all over. 

“I don’t think I ever really knew who we were, but I think it’s safe to say at some juncture we became an institution, a neighborhood institution” Dana says, adding, “Thank gawd, the tables can’t snitch!”

Sneedlings

Saturday birthdays: Kate McKinnon, 39, and Eddie Redmayne, 41. Sunday birthdays: Jeremy Renner, 52, Katie Couric, 66, Nicolas Cage, 59. and Kenny Loggins, 75.