Super GemChicago Exclusive GemDish Gem$$The actual pretzel idea came out of an Iron Chef-style cooking challenge they ran with friends — someone made a stuffed pretzel for the first time, and as McLoughlin put it, "it just kind of stuck." They started selling at farmers markets in 2011, opened their first real storefront in Winfield in 2013 — a tiny house with no public restrooms and no seating, brutal in summer and worse in winter — and finally moved to a proper Lombard space in 2022 with the amenities regulars had been asking for for years: indoor seating, a real coffee program, expanded hours.
The stuffed pretzels are still the reason people come — three cheese, Italian beef, a Monte Cristo version, rotating daily specials like a bacon cheeseburger stuffed pretzel — but the coffee menu has earned its own following since the move, particularly the toffee mallow iced coffee regulars specifically call out.
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