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Maggiano's Little Italy

516 N Clark St, Chicago, IL

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Maggiano's Little Italy opened its first location in 1991 in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, built around a deliberately old-school, family-style Italian-American dining concept evoking a fictional early-20th-century immigrant restaurant, complete with a backstory and decor meant to suggest decades of history despite being an entirely new concept. The chain built its identity around oversized portions served family-style, specifically designed for sharing across a table rather than individual plated courses, a format that's made it a particularly popular choice for large group gatherings, family celebrations, and business dinners needing to accommodate varied tastes at one table. Maggiano's was acquired by Brinker International, the parent company of Chili's, in 1995 and has since expanded to dozens of locations across the country while maintaining the same family-style, generous-portion format at every restaurant regardless of region. Maggiano's combination of its deliberately nostalgic old-world Italian-American concept and its family-style, large-portion sharing format has made it one of the most consistently popular choices for group dining and celebrations anywhere in the American casual-Italian dining category.

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