What are they THINKING with?

Bad, sad news out of Chicago. The Trader Vics in the Palmer House Hilton is CLOSING!

This is one of the original Trader Vics: It's been in the basement of the Palmer House since 1957 and is Fabulous, just Fabulous.

Now, this isn't just me being a nostalgic fart. The Palmer House is a very historic, very ornate hotel with just oodles of meeting space. But it has no good restaurants. Nothing with any pizazz: Just the obilgatory lobby bar, "sports bar" and some sort of lame steakhouse.

Trader Vics, each and every time I was ever there, was always packed with heavy drinkers. That is a hotel manager's wet dream, because you make your money on liquor.

Of course, Hilton wasn't getting the gravy on that - Trader Vics was. But there is no way that a company like Hilton will come up with anything near as cool as a Trader Vics. They'll probably just put in some lame health club or something.

But at least I'll get to be there one last time before it closes.