Mario's Italian Lemonade: 70 years as a Chicago summer staple

CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - This week's Made in Chicago is a humble lemonade stand which has been delighting Chicagoans and visitors for 70 years.

Since 1954, Mario's Italian Lemonade at 1068 W. Taylor Street has been serving up the sweet summer staple to generations of customers including David Buffer and Mishawn Davis-Eyene.

“Great flavors and great prices,” Buffer said.

“It's just wonderful, the flavors taste really natural, and you really just can’t get this everywhere,” Davis-Eyne said.

“I'm amazed. I'm amazed how popular we are,” owner Mario DiPaolo Jr. said.

He is the Mario behind Mario's Italian Lemonade, well, one of them. His late father, also named Mario, was the one who came up with the idea of a lemonade stand.

“My father just wanted to give me an activity,” DiPaolo recalled. “I'd squeeze lemons, get sugar, get block ice and rock salt and turned it for about two hours, and lemonade came out, and we sold it. It was two cents.”

As for how the lemonade evolved into other flavors, Mario said one day, long ago, he and his sister were working at the stand and having a snowball fight using ice from snow cones when one of the flavored snowballs fell into the lemonade.

“Now, it's red, and we turned it and tasted it, ‘Oh this is good, this is good,’” DiPaolo remembered. “I go, ‘Dad, taste this,’ and, he said, ‘Hey bon,  hey bon.’”

They now serve about 25 flavors, and Mario couldn't be prouder of the little lemonade stand his father built.

“It's my whole life,” DiPaolo said.

Now, his children are carrying on the family legacy.

“My two sons, I named them both Mario because I didn't know who would lead the way,” said DiPaolo.

He even tried to name his daughter Mario.

“He wanted to name me Mario Davina, and my mom vetoed that, which I really appreciate,” said Davina DiPaolo, Mario’s daughter.

“Just for the legacy, you're all Mario, you're all Mario,” said DiPaolo.

Mario DiPaolo and Mario's Italian Lemonade is Made in Chicago.

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