It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Hi, I'm Curious City reporter Monica Aang, and I've covered food in Chicago for a long time.

But some things have stumped me for years, like this one food mystery that's bugged

question asker Johnny Schulte. See, he's got a job that takes him all over the south side.

And I would see these steak and lemonade places, and I was just kind of intrigued by

why steak and lemonade. Why and how and who and how it came to be?

If you travel around the south and west sides of Chicago, you may have seen these places

Johnny's talking about. Their fast food joints, usually painted yellow and blue, with the brand

name Babas or some variation on it. They started popping up around here about a decade ago.

But as to Johnny's questions about who came up with the idea,

I scoured the internet and found nothing on the combo's origins.

What I did learn was that these joints have fanned out to Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio,

and even Louisville, Kentucky, where there's a whole chain called,

get this, Chicago Steak and Lemonade.

So this food combo represents Chicago in like five states, but still remains a mystery to many Chicagoans,

including my pals who edit Chicago's Food Encyclopedia. They'd never heard of steak and lemonade, much less its origins.

To be honest, I wasn't even sure what steak here meant, like tea bones, strip steaks, or what?

I figured this was going to take some old-fashioned reporting and eating.

So I mapped out every steak and lemonade place from my office to Indiana.

And I picked up Johnny.

Hey, Johnny, nice to meet you.

Great to meet you. How are you?

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