The Hearty Final Meal John Dillinger Ate Before His Death

John Dillinger may have been a hardened gang leader with a penchant for robbing banks, but despite presumably having plenty of cash to fill his pockets, he wasn't living high on the hog when dinnertime came around. On the night of his infamous final takedown by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, it's thought that he dined on a comfort food favorite: fried chicken.

As the seedy story goes, the notorious Indianapolis-born criminal was flying under the radar, living at a brothel in the Windy City, in an effort to escape the eyes of law enforcement. The location wasn't accidental — his girlfriend, Polly Hamilton, was a sex worker, and her landlady was the brothel's operator and Dillinger's ultimate betrayer, Ana Cumpanas, a Romanian immigrant who went by the name Anna Sage. According to lore, before Sage accompanied the two to see a film at the theater, she prepared a meal of fried chicken and gravy. It was under the guise of needing butter for the dish that she contacted the FBI to inform them of their intended destination for the evening, all in an attempt to evade deportation for her activities as a madame.

While some envision the fried chicken that Dillinger ate that night as the Southern-style breaded variety, others say it was a pan-fried chicken fricassée, which coincides with Sage's claim of needing butter. While there are lots of hacks for the ultimate fried chicken, using butter isn't typically a part of the process.

John Dillinger welcomed cozy dishes made with care at home, which was ideal since he was often evading the law. He also had a few favorite spots for when he was up for dining out. Chicago's Seminary Restaurant, a purveyor of high-quality meats and sweets, was one of his go-to joints. Dillinger also popped into The Hollyhocks Club in St. Paul, Minnesota, where steak was a common order. When he was in the mood for a more casual bite, Dillinger enjoyed Ernie's Bleachers in Chicago, where he partook in 25-cent sandwiches with four slices of ham flanked by the crown and heel of a hamburger bun. Since 1980, it has been Murphy's Bleachers, and it earned a spot on USA Today's 2026 list of top sports bars in the country.

In Dillinger's home state of Indiana, he appreciated a hearty meal (along with a bit of clandestine drinking and gambling) at Spring Brook Rod and Gun Club. Now called The Rod and Gun, the Terre Haute restaurant serves meat and seafood, albeit not in the original structure ,which burned down in 1970. While in Tucson, Dillinger spent time at the lunch counter of Owl Drug Store. His meals there may not have made history, but his chewing gum did. Following Dillinger's arrest in Arizona, the drug store's owner gathered gum that the outlaw had stuck beneath the counter while there. For those interested in a bit of weird history, the jar of it can be viewed at Tucson's Coit Museum of Pharmacy & Health Services.