After taking over his aunt’s Maxwell Street hot-dog stand in 1941, Serbian transplant Jimmy Stefanovic began building iconic sandwiches whose recipes lay untouched nearly 70 years later. The foundation of the menu is the Maxwell Street polish sausage sandwich, a third-pound smoked-pork-and-beef frank whose crunchy casing warms a bun packed with yellow mustard, sport peppers, and sweet grilled onions. Although the menu has expanded over the years to include burgers, bone-in-pork-chop sandwiches, and grilled chicken, customers can still elect to wash down meaty bites with the bottled grape and strawberry sodas of yesteryear. The 24-hour counter ensures customers can fulfill cravings around the clock, and pairs each sandwich with a heap of free french fries that patrons can use as bait to lure more sandwiches into their brown paper bags.
