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Society Collections

Mathon’s - for Ichthyophagists

Ichthyophagist is the Greek word for someone who eats fish, and in using the Greek word for fish (ichthyo) eater (phagist) in his signage and advertising, Mathon Kyritsis not only demonstrated his confidence in the fare he prepared for his guests, he also displayed pride in his Greek heritage. Mathon emigrated to the United States from Greece in 1919, and for over fifty years Chicagoland’s celebrities, politicians and seafood lovers regularly visted his Waukegan restaurant.

What initially made the restaurant so special was that Mathon operated two fishing boats (one named The Mathon) out of Waukegan’s harbor. His own daily supply of lake catch coupled with the restaurant being only a block and a half from the harbor allowed Mathon to serve his patrons the freshest freshwater fish in the area. Mathon’s specialty was planked fish—typicallly whitefish—which was briefly grilled or broiled then placed on an oak plank surrounded by mashed potatoes for the remainder of its cooking time, giving the fish and potatoes a smoky flavor. Even after Mathon’s stopped running its own boats, the restaurant would cook any fisherman’s catch for them.

Opened as a small lunch counter at 6 E. Clayton, Mathon’s small stand would eventually grow into a large structure with a maritime aesthetic suggesting the nature of its cuisine: portholes for windows, ships’ lights, and ribbed interior walls and clapboard siding suggesting the bulkhead of a ship. The parking lot of the restaurant displayed the anchor of the Prince Wilhelm V (a 258-foot freighter which wrecked off shore of Waukegan).

Photograph of Mathon's restaurant from the West showing the trademark large vertical sign.

Mathon's restaurant. Waukegan Historical Society

Mathon was known both locally and to a lesser extent on a national level. In the 1950s, Mathon appeared regularly on WGN TV giving his winter weather predictions based on a method he developed by monitoring the depth at which perch were running in Lake Michigan. Mathon also went before Congress with a live lamprey eel, warning of the eels’ effect on the Lake Michigan ecosystem.

Mathon died in 1973 at the age of 71, and his son John ran the restaurant until it closed. Mathon’s also helped Chicago welcome the World Cup to Illinois in 1994. For one week in June that year, Mathon’s boated tournament players and their entourages from Chicago to Waukegan’s harbor for dinner at the restaurant.

Before the building was razed in 2004 it was used in the filming of two movies: Gotham, IL (2004) and The Ice Harvest (2005).

—Lucas Bucholtz, (July 2006)