17 N Wabash Avenue in Chicago was originally a "sedate tea-room" but when it became a night club called the Movie Inn it served "livelier liquids and a cabaret and film patrons added to the Loop's clamor."

According to a 1916 Chicago Tribune story it was occupied by "whirling dervishes".

The club advertised itself as "Chicago's Most Unique Eating Place Rendezvous For Movie Stars”. At the time Chicago was, in fact, the capital of film making. In the early 1900s the city boasted the greatest number of production studios and film makers. 

The Movie Inn offered Tea Dances from 3 to 6pm and music from 12 noon to 1am.

Mother Greenstein served free Thanksgiving Dinners at the Movie Inn for over 15 years. "It was no ordinary feed, she served the jobless and the friendless, the floaters, and the bums, but one that was graced with linen and silver with flowers on the table."

This Thanksgiving Dinner menu comes from just before Prohibition started in 1920.  

 We suspect the Movie Inn closed some time during the late 1920s.