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For those wondering what was going on with the dormant former Cyrus space — the subject of a lengthy restaurant-vs-landlord battle that ended in a quiet settlement last year, with Cyrus departing — the answer arrives today. Chalk Board Bistro is the name, and as BiteClub reports, it's going to be an "upscale casual" spot that is more "approachable" in the eyes of the landlord, Bill Foley. Foley also owns Chalk Hill winery, hence the name, and daily specials will be on a chalk board. One of the disputes with Cyrus, as you may recall, had to do with the restaurant not being able to provide room service to the hotel guests upstairs, so that's likely in the cards here too. The chef is Shane McAnelly, the former executive chef of Va de Vi in Walnut Creek, who left in December. The ETA on this remains unclear. [BiteClub]

You've got your Baylesses and your Achatzes, but if you want to talk Chicago culinary ambassadors to the world, you need to stop at a little storefront on an industrial side street that calls itself "the Sausage Superstore." "Hot Doug" Sohn's hot-dog joint stands at the nexus of everything in Chicago food — reverence for meat; the gleeful mix of high and low food culture (it was Doug, after all, who got the only ticket for serving foie gras during the mid-aughts ban); streetwise smartassery as the cornerstone of one's brand identity; and, not least, a serious commitment to doing one of Chicago's staples better than a million other guys. Now the stop on every tourist's and food-TV host's itinerary is coming to book form in July (appropriately titled Hot Doug's: The Book), combining Doug's own story, as told to Kate DeVivo, with stories from his customers about how his encased meats have changed their lives. We spoke with the great man himself about how he came to write a book, and what he thinks Hot Doug's has to tell the Harvard Business School.

Just after the new year in 2012, CatHead's BBQ moved into its first brick-and-mortar home in the former Big Nate's BBQ space at 1665 Folsom. Until then they had been a catering and pop-up operation with an electric smoker (co-owner Richard Park joked at the time, "All this time, we've still had hair on arms. Now we're back to having some real fire."), but for the last year they've been turning out excellent Coca-Cola-braised brisket, pulled pork, and enormous buttermilk biscuits ("as big as a cat's head") to an eager audience in SoMa. It's time now, on Saturday, January 26, to celebrate their first year in business, and they're doing it with a Customer Appreciation Party from noon to 5 p.m. See the flyer below.