Drink This: Cesar’s “Killer” Margaritas

Chicago is no stranger to swanky cocktails. While the city isn’t credited with being the birthplace of classic drinks like the martini, manhattan or tom collins, it’s always been a high-class drinking town.  But sometimes you don’t want a classic cocktail. Sometimes, you want a fruit, frozen, umbrella-in-the-glass margarita. And sometimes, you want it to be served in a glass the size of your head.

When you want an obscenely large, electric-colored flavored margarita, there’s really no better place to go than Cesar’s. Cesar’s offers two locations – at Belmont and Clark just off the red line, and at Broadway and Oakdale, just north of Diversey (which has an outdoor patio during the summer). At both, the food is inexpensive, decent – if not overly authentic – Mexican favorites like quesadillas, fajitas, and nachos. But you don’t come in search of the best Mexican food in Chicago. The food is a sideshow here, a mere prop, something to soak up the alcohol so you can drink more margaritas. No, the real stars here are the margaritas.

The margs come in large, jumbo, and mega, starting at $9 and going up in price by $1 for every size….making it easy to justify the upgrade, for better or worse. And the plenitude of options continues to the flavors, with lime, mango, guava, strawberry, blue curacao, peach, banana, raspberry, and tamarindo being among the staples.

So, if you find yourself in the Lakeview area on a hot summer day, in need of a cool down or a way to satiate a sudden margarita craving, hightail it to Cesar’s, belly up to the bar, and see how many flavors you can try before the “killer margaritas” live up to their name.

Photo by: Fuschia Foot