Eat and Get Out.
That’s the slogan at Ed Debevic’s, which since 1984 has been one of Chicago’s iconic restaurants.
Ed’s is a not a subtle dining experience.
The cuisine appears to have been tele-transported from the 1950s – huge burgers, hand-dipped shakes, jumbo hot dogs, and cheese fries.
The servers are loud, abrasive, and snarky. They wear ludicrous costumes and adopt various high school personas – from jocks to nerds to wisecrackers. “Whaddya want?” they might ask when taking your order.
As Ed’s own website points out, “Don’t expect this diner to be a ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ kind of place.”
Every table gets a complimentary basket of homemade chips. Once I made the mistake of asking my server if we could have a refill. “You got those for free!” he shouted, making sure the whole restaurant could hear. “You think I’m really going to give you more?” We never got our refill. But the drama was definitely fun.
Ed’s usually has a long line of customers waiting for a seat. Occasionally a staff member will get on the P.A. system and say something like, “Hope you’re having a great time, everyone. Now, if you’re finished, get out. We’re trying to make some money here!”
Best of all, from time to time the servers drop their trays and jump up on the counter, dancing to raucous songs like The Village People’s classic YMCA.
No wonder people drive hundreds of miles just to be insulted and to gorge themselves on items that are not associated with a standard cardiologist’s recommended diet.
Faithful fans groaned when Ed Debevic’s closed its doors at its original North Shore site in 2015. Sanity (and Ed’s) was finally restored when they launched a new Chicago location six years later.
When you think about it, Eat and Get Out would be a great slogan for followers of Jesus, too.
Jesus calls his followers to share a common table – literally and figuratively.
We should sit down together. And encourage each other. We should listen well, wrestle with hard questions, and deal compassionately with each other’s weaknesses.
Ed’s offers fullness of a particular kind. So does Jesus: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).
But after we feast on spiritual fellowship, it’s time to get out. Intimacy should be followed, as author John Ortberg suggests, by “outimacy.”
We should get out into the world. Out into the battle. Out into the muddle and chaos of a culture where politics, entertainment, social issues, and religion seem to divide people more often than unite them.
It’s wonderful to have a place at the table.
But after we eat together, filling ourselves with the fullness and joy of the grace of God, there’s one last thing we need to say to each other:
Out you go!
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