Dining out: Andy’s fetes turning 40 with birthday-inspired treats
40 years of Andy’s
Andy’s Frozen Custard is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a lineup of limited-time, birthday-inspired treats featuring fresh-baked cakes, available now through April 28.
Specials include the ANDYversary Chocolate Cake Concrete, which blends Andy’s vanilla frozen custard with a whole slice of fudgy chocolate cake. It’s also available as a sundae. They’ve also brought back the Gooey Butter Cake Concrete and Sundae, featuring chunks of St. Louis-style gooey butter cake.
Flavors of Britain
Niche in Geneva continues its globally inspired multicourse dinner series Thursday, March 26, with an evening highlighting classic British dishes paired with optional wines.
Start with the Scotch egg, followed by fish and chips with a pea purée. That’s followed by steak and Guinness pie, featuring short ribs, bone marrow, carrots, parsnips, pearl onions and peas in a short crust. End on a sweet note with sticky toffee pudding.
It’s $95 per person with $35 for the wine pairing. Call (630) 262-1000 for reservations.
More Lenten options
There are still a couple of Fridays left during Lent, and a few suburban restaurants are offering lighter options.
Bien Trucha in Geneva and Quiubo in Naperville are serving up a pescando zarandeado special on Fridays through April 3. The whole butterflied snapper is served with morita adobo, rice, red cabbage, chile morita vinaigrette and tortillas.
J. Alexander’s, with locations in Oak Brook and Northbrook, is touting lighter options such as Carolina crab cakes and Hong Kong Shrimp.
Stoney River in Deer Park is offering the tuna stack appetizer, cedar plank salmon and Nola grilled shrimp.
Opa!
Grill House, 3061 Dundee Road, Northbrook, recently introduced a lineup of nightly dinner specials with chef-driven takes on comfort classics inspired by traditional Greek recipes.
The daily specials starting at 3 p.m. include pastichio on Mondays and Greek-style Duroc pork chop on Tuesdays, followed the rest of the week with gemista (stuffed peppers with savory rice), brown butter pasta with Bolognese sauce, sea bass, 24-hour braised beef and boneless leg of lamb on Sundays.
Wine dinner
The Greggory in South Barrington hosts the next iteration of its 2026 wine dinner series Tuesday, March 31, with Andy Erickson, the founder and winemaker of boutique label Favia Wines.
Erickson has been a Napa Valley mainstay for more than three decades, working with wineries including Harlan Estate, Screaming Eagle and Staglin Family Vineyards.
The four-course dinner from chef José Sosa and paired with wines curated by Erickson is $250 per person, with tickets available on OpenTable. Wines will be available for purchase following the dinner.
Month of Giving
Jersey Mike’s Subs is gearing up for its busiest day of the year.
Wednesday, March 25, is the sandwich shop’s annual “Day of Giving,” when 100% of the day’s sales will be donated to the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games and the local athletes participating.
It’s part of the 16th annual “Month of Giving” campaign, which last year raised about $30 million for charities.
• Email dining events to rwest@dailyherald.com.