The Abbey & Lake Geneva, Chicago's Vacation Getaway

As you know from my tweets and facebook posts over labor day weekend, I got to finally relive my childhood dream vacation in lake Geneva, staying at my all time fav, the abbey. The level of culinary, wine, boating, games, swimming, spa, leisure,.. and anything else to just enjoy family & friends.. was such a pleasure.. especially since the getaway was only a 90 minute drive from downtown chicago to the abbey front door (excluding my stops to produce stands and apple picking farms), making it everything I remember, and much much more.. especially with the new additions of a 35,000 sq ft high end spa & a huge hard core bbq smoker out by the docs!  Pretty much my perfect combo in life.

it was also really interesting to see staff at the abbey and surrounding businesses that I actually knew from working in the industry in chicago!  Many people who have been able to escape to lake Geneva, decided to stay!  Top three Chicagoans I have to give a shout out to and suggest you seek out when there are.. 1) Michael Lucero who used to be at house of blues and now runs the abbey (and the best staff ever) as director of operations 2) simon cummings who was a chicago chef that opened up the restaurant “sopra” out there that I enjoyed, and 3) kevin halminiak that I used to work with at dragonfly & martini ranch back in the day who opened the coolest most amazing place I have seen anywhere in a while called the baker house, an old huge historic Victorian mansion that he turned into a killer restaurant & speakeasy type bar that is a must see! (hint: don’t miss it just before sun down!)

I will be back! check out www.theabbeyresort.com for more info and take a look at www.lakegenevawi.com for everything else lake geneva has to offer!