South Side barbecue for lunch?

Friends soon to visit from the West Coast have expressed an interest in doughnuts. I was thinking it might be fun to combine a doughnut jaunt (probably best as a morning trip) with barbecue for lunch, but I'm unclear on which worthwhile places open early enough. Recommendations? Also, are all the good places strictly carryout?

Honky Tonk is most out-of-town friendly (and virtually the only eat-in Southern style barbecue south of Roosevelt), but it doesn't open until 4:30 any day.

My vote for highest quality of the mainstays is Uncle John's, but their hours can be unpredictable. If Mack is open, though, it's a very short shot over to the South Shore Cultural Center or to the Fountain of Time (University of Chicago Midway) for some nice park dining.

Lem's and Barbara Ann's seem to be open on a more normalized schedule. Barbara Ann's is on a busier section of roadway and has a little parking lot just to the south for double-park dining a la car (or a la hood). They open at noon every day save Sunday. I might recommend that route.

These are all good places, and yes, all are carryout (with a smile, through bulletproof glass). On that front, you might also be well served by That's-A-Burger, which opens at 11 AM.

This thread reminds me about the thread regarding Krispy Kreme burgers. I wonder what brisket and donuts would taste like together. I don't think I'd like that anyways. Smoked donuts. Ugh!

Santander wrote:Barbara Ann's is on a busier section of roadway and has a little parking lot just to the south for double-park dining a la car (or a la hood). They open at noon every day save Sunday. I might recommend that route.

I have always thought it would be amusing to order food at Barbara Ann's, then get a room on the premises. Watch TV and eat BBQ in bed just seems like a lot of fun, if not a bit perverse.

Regards,

Good point, C2! They have hourly rates, on the cheap, which I think are just as good for menage-a-que as menage-a-anything else.

Cathy2 wrote:I have always thought it would be amusing to order food at Barbara Ann's, then get a room on the premises. Watch TV and eat BBQ in bed just seems like a lot of fun, if not a bit perverse.

I think that's a little too decadent for these particular visitors, but on some other occasion, I'm game if you are!

Santander, thanks for the detailed info.

Schedules of everybody involved are still a bit hazy, but I will surely post if it all comes together. They have also requested steak and deep-dish pizza, easy enough requests to fill, but I'm hoping to get them to less hackneyed Chicago fare, too. Since they're coming from Seattle and Sonoma, it should be simple to feed them on things they don't have at home.

Maybe it's too far south, and maybe the time is too early, but check out Chuck's breakfast menu.

http://www.ChucksCafe.com/Portals/3/Breakfast_menu.pd

Jane wrote:Maybe it's too far south, and maybe the time is too early, but check out Chuck's breakfast menu.

http://www.ChucksCafe.com/Portals/3/Breakfast_menu.pdf

Link fixed

you can have Old Fashioned Doughnuts, then venture down the street to the i57 ribhouse.. that would be a hoot for out of town visitors. you can't eat in i57 though, so it would have to be a picnic or something.

If you can't line-up a good BBQ sit-down for lunch, how about some solid soul food? Army and Lou's (at 422 E. 75th St.) isn't too far off the Dan Ryan, and I'll bet your friends from Sonoma have never been to a place quite like this (a lot of old Chicago tradition here, too)

To me this is a no-brainer as a combo, BTW - you head on down to Old Fashioned Donuts and do the apple fritter for breakfast, plus some excellent donuts (you could actually eat there, though I never have myself).

And then for lunch you head back up to 69th and go to Uncle John's, for IMHO by far the best bbq in the city. I dont think the hours are unpredictable either, really - theyve just changed a couple times (for example, they used to be open till midnight and then 11 - the old menus still say that - but their closing time has moved to 10pm for a while now, M-Thu). But, if neccessary, you can always call and check.
Make sure to try the hot-links - your friends from Sonoma will have never eaten anything like it, IMHO.

I agree that soul food would be another fine option for an "new to them" cuisine. Army and Lou's is a pretty solid option for this, as suggested (though my own favourite is actually Macarthur's on the West Side - another place you can have a fine sit-down soulfood meal). And then there are a couple other rec's which I havent gotten to yet.. Turner's Family Soulfood (at 8233 South Ashland) comes highly recommended, and, of course, the now famous BJ's market has supposedly a fine soul food buffet.

(One of my own fave places on the southside, BTW, is a sit-down meal spot.. Uncle Joe's Jerk Chicken, on about 8200 Cottage Grove. If Carribean food is exotic enough to have not been tried by your friends before, this would be a great option too - great smoky Jerk Chicken with fiery sauce on the side, plus curry-goat, fried plantains, calalloo et al).

c8w

c8w wrote:And then for lunch you head back up to 69th and go to Uncle John's, for IMHO by far the best bbq in the city. I dont think the hours are unpredictable either, really - theyve just changed a couple times (for example, they used to be open till midnight and then 11 - the old menus still say that - but their closing time has moved to 10pm for a while now, M-Thu). But, if neccessary, you can always call and check.

I did. This may work.

Uncle John's BBQ
337 E. 69th St., Chicago
773-892-1233
noon to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays
noon to midnight Fridays and Saturdays

Of course, if I factor in the cost of gas to get down there, we could eat steak on the North Side.

Uncle John's spare ribs (full slab)



Large hot links



Chicken (6-piece dark)

Well, we never made it for South Side doughnuts, because nobody wanted to get up early, and after we had lunch from Uncle John's, nobody had room. The ribs, ordered with sauce on the side, were meaty and smoky and toothsome, bark-covered but not dry, and the hot links were stupendous. Absolutely, my friends had never had anything like them.

The chicken was crisp and not too greasy, but nothing special. My Seattle friend who ordered it was expecting barbecued chicken, and it didn't occur to me to tell him otherwise. Coleslaw was decent.

We got canned pop from the machine and took our meal over to Jackson Park, where everybody had fun watching the parakeets and playing with the giant beetles. Fortunately, it had stopped raining.

They got doughnuts, or rather holes, the next day, when we went to David Burke's Primehouse for dinner and had the fill-your-own doughnut holes for dessert.



Thanks for the recommendations, everyone!