10 Things Illinoisans Do That Baffle Everyone Who Moves There

Your first Friday in Chicago, a new coworker buys the table a round and slides you a shot of something the color of flat ginger ale.

You throw it back to be polite.

Your face does something it has never done before, and the whole table cheers.

Welcome to Illinois. You’ve got plenty more of these moments ahead of you.

1. Ordering a Beef “Dipped”

Illinois has a sandwich outsiders think they can just order, right up until the counter worker fires back one word they didn’t see coming.

“Dipped?”

The Italian beef is thin-sliced roast beef piled on a soft roll, and locals hold strong opinions about what happens next.

Dipped means the whole roll goes back into the pan of seasoned gravy for a quick bath.

You can order it wet, dry, hot, or sweet, and every combination has its defenders.

Hot means spicy giardiniera. Sweet means roasted green peppers.

The sandwich goes back to Depression-era Chicago, where Al’s #1 Italian Beef has served it since 1938, and Portillo’s turned it into a household name.

One more thing you learn fast: You eat a dipped beef leaning over the counter, feet apart, so the juice hits the floor instead of your shirt.

They call it the Italian beef stance.

2. The Malort Face

Buy a transplant their first round in a Chicago bar, and it sometimes arrives as a shot of pale, ginger-ale-colored liquor.

That’s Jeppson’s Malort.

It’s a bitter, wormwood-based liquor with a taste people compare to grapefruit rind, gasoline, and regret.

The grimace you make on the first sip has its own name.

The Malort face.

Bartenders keep a bottle around partly to haze out-of-towners, and partly because knocking a shot back counts as a badge of honor.

The stuff has been tied to Chicago since Prohibition, and it’s bottled in the city today.

Nobody drinks it because it tastes good. They drink it because it’s Chicago’s.

3. Calling the Highways by Name

Directions from an Illinoisan come as a list of names, not numbers.

Take the Kennedy to the Edens. Watch the merge where the Ike meets the Dan Ryan.

Nobody says the numbers.

Locals call each expressway by a person’s name instead, rattling them off like old friends: The Stevenson, the Edens, the Dan Ryan.

Most are named for politicians and public figures.

Then there’s Lake Shore Drive, which everyone shortens to LSD, or just the Drive.

None of it clicks for a newcomer at first.

Hand a Chicagoan the interstate number instead, and you’ll get a blank stare.

4. Gym Shoes, Not Sneakers

The athletic shoes on your feet have a different name in Illinois.

They’re gym shoes.

Not sneakers, not tennis shoes, not trainers.

Kids grow up being told to grab their gym shoes for recess, and the word stays glued on for life.

The rest of the country splits between sneakers and tennis shoes, while greater Chicago sticks with gym shoes.

Say sneakers around a lifelong local, and you’ll catch a look.

Same shoes, different name.

5. Never Ketchup on a Hot Dog

Illinoisans will load a hot dog with more toppings than seem possible, yet one bottle stays off the table.

Ketchup.

A Chicago-style hot dog starts with a Vienna Beef frank tucked into a poppy seed bun.

Then come yellow mustard, chopped onion, bright green relish, tomato wedges, a dill pickle spear, sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt.

Locals call that “dragged through the garden.”

What you won’t find on a proper Chicago-style hot dog is ketchup, and locals treat asking for it as a serious taboo.

Grown adults will tell you it belongs on fries and nowhere near a hot dog.

They mean it.

6. The Gapers Block

Illinois traffic reports come with a phrase that stops newcomers cold: The gapers block.

A gapers block, sometimes a gapers delay, is the backup caused by drivers slowing down to stare at something on the shoulder.

A fender bender. A cop’s flashing lights. A couch that fell off a truck.

The wreck itself might be long gone.

Traffic crawls anyway. Every driver taps the brakes for a look.

It’s Chicago’s word for rubbernecking, and traffic reporters say it with a sigh.

Nobody can resist.

Everyone slows for a peek, and nobody gets there on time.

7. Dibs on a Parking Spot

One Illinois tradition makes national news practically every winter, and it baffles everyone who moves to Chicago.

It’s called dibs.

Here’s how it works: When someone spends an hour digging their car out of a snowed-in parking spot, they claim that spot by dropping a lawn chair, a milk crate, or an old ironing board in it.

The whole city knows what it means.

That spot’s taken.

Move the chair and park there anyway, and you might return to an angry note, or worse.

The custom shows up in old newspaper accounts as far back as the 1967 blizzard.

Technically, dibs breaks a city rule against blocking public streets, but mayors have looked the other way for decades.

Nobody wins a fight over a folding chair.

8. Running to "the Jewel"

Illinois shorthand can turn a simple grocery run into a puzzle for newcomers.

"I'm running to the Jewel," a neighbor says, and the new arrival pictures a jewelry counter.

The Jewel is Jewel-Osco, the grocery chain that anchors half the strip malls in the area.

Many locals add an s that isn't on the sign.

They call it Jewels.

Writers have puzzled over that phantom s for years.

One store, two syllables, and a plural nobody can quite explain.

9. Cubs or Sox, Never Both

In Illinois, a newcomer has to pick a baseball team, and there's no fence to sit on.

Chicago has two: the Cubs on the North Side and the White Sox on the South Side.

Say you root for both, and you'll get corrected fast.

Pick a side.

For a lot of families, the choice got settled generations ago by which side of town they lived on.

The loyalty roughly divides along a line across the middle of the city.

The Cubs fill Wrigley Field up north, while the Sox play their games down south.

Rooting for both marks you as an outsider on the spot.

10. Answering With a Neighborhood

Ask an Illinoisan from the Chicago area where they're from, and you'll rarely hear the word Chicago.

You get a neighborhood or a suburb.

Never the whole city.

Bridgeport, Beverly, Naperville, Oak Park, Schaumburg: The answer is always more exact than outsiders expect.

City residents name their neighborhood, sometimes down to the parish they grew up near.

Suburbanites name their town, and they'll correct you if you fold them into the city.

Say Chicago to someone from Naperville, and they'll remind you it's a 40-minute drive from downtown.

To an outsider, it all sounds like one big city.

To a local, the exact block is the whole point.