Chicago Mike’s Hot Dogs

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Photo by Megan Smith

0513 Chicago Mikes

Michelle Collum and mom Jenni Pennington have run Chicago Mike’s since Pennington bought it from original owner Mike Zaden last spring.

Last spring, 12-year Chicago Mike’s customer Michelle Collum found out that her favorite lunch spot was closing. She called mother, Jenni Pennington, and hatched a plan. By May, Pennington and her husband, Kyle, had signed the ownership papers for the 16-year-old restaurant. The mother-daughter team re-opened the stand weekdays for lunch starting in June.

“It’s like working outside,” Pennington said, “which is great especially when the weather is great.”

The former snow cone stand has two screen rooms built onto each side that former owner Mike Zaden added. Customers walk up to the sliding window to place their orders.

Pennington and Collum added picnic tables and umbrellas outside for customers to enjoy on nice days. They also installed a credit card-processing machine. Previously, some loyal customers were forced to find the nearest ATM in order to pay cash for their Mike’s food. 

But beyond that, not much changed with the ownership.

“When we bought the restaurant, we bought all the recipes,” Pennington said. “We’re producing food the same way it’s been for 16 years — except the things we’ve added, of course.”

The menu includes hotdogs, hamburgers, club and chicken salad sandwiches and, occasionally, desserts from a nearby bakery. The stand is too small for a soda fountain, but it does offer canned sodas for $1 and tea or coffee for $1.25.

Hotdogs and hamburgers come plain, or for additional $.25 per topping, customers can create their own version. Collum said they don’t shirk on the add-ons. With their updated menu, they also created a logo that is a caricature of the former owner.

“A customer once said that if you’re not wearing it when you leave, you didn’t eat at Mike’s,” Collum said.

The mother-daughter team said the only downside to the stand’s location on the corner of Rosedale Drive and 18th Street South is trying to be heard over the traffic. But for them the occasional highway noise is bearable because of the diversity of customers the stand brings in with its easily accessibility from Homewood, downtown Birmingham, UAB and U.S. 280. Their goal is to try to treat everyone who comes to their window like family.

“An important factor of buying the place was learning all the regulars by name,” Pennington said. “We’ve learned that that’s really important to the customers here.”

Both women previously worked in the medical field and have so far enjoyed their newly structured work days, 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“I wouldn’t work with anyone else in this little box,” Collum said. “I have more fun working with my mom than with a boss.”