About one more Ryan Field’s distance away from Ryan Field, where Northwestern football plays its home games, a new-construction building will house Ten Mile House (1700 Central St., Evanston), an “elevated American comfort food” place scheduled to soft-open November 8 (when the Wildcats play Michigan at home) and open-open November 12.
Ownership named the restaurant for Ten-Mile House, a tavern, post office, and courthouse built in 1836 in what became Evanston. “Let’s have a name that is Evanston,” Robert LaPata says the partners reasoned. (LaPata consulted on Unite Urban Grill, owned by Joe Krouse, another Ten Mile House partner.) “The food is fun and simple and not boring,” LaPata says.
He says chef Greg Carter, a Lettuce Entertain You alumnus, has slated chicken-chorizo sliders, roast lamb, and pizza-dough frybread with cucumber sauce.
Customers can expect a $25 to $30 check average for food and one drink, LaPata says, a level they hope will appeal to the local families and college students. “We anticipate a lot of residents in the area walking in,” he says. Not to mention the several thousand Wildcat fans walking by a few times each fall. They’ll either be celebrating or drowning their sorrows, right?