The food lineup for Windy City Smokeout is out, and the annual festival, scheduled from Thursday, July 10 through Sunday, July 13 outside the United Center, continues to feature some of the country’s most popular barbecue restaurants melding a variety of regional styles.
The Chicago contingent isn’t too seismic with old favorites returning: Bub City, Chef Art Smith’s Reunion, Green Street Smoked Meats, Lexington Betty Smokehouse, Smoque BBQ, and Soul & Smoke, according to a news release.
The real fun for disciples of smoked meat is the chance to try items from pitmasters stationed in other states. Little Miss BBQ from Phoenix is making the trip. Hoodoo Brown BBQ from Ridgefield, Connecticut, will also attend. Chicagoans will also get to try Heritage Barbecue, located outside of LA, which former Eater LA staffer Farley Elliott called a “gamechanger” for locals.
Each vendor will offer two items at their booths. Tickets don’t cover the prices of food; that’s just for the music. There are also two ancillary events. A happy hour on Friday, July 11, and a barbecue brunch on Sunday, July 13, with food from a few of the Chicago-based pitmasters. Passes and single-day tickets are available at www.windycitysmokeout.com.
Check out the full lineup of the 22 pitmasters below.
- Bub City (Chicago)
- Chef Art Smith’s Reunion (Chicago)
- Dayne’s Craft BBQ (Aledo, Texas)
- Gene’s BBQ (Atlanta)
- Green Street Smoked Meats (Chicago)
- Heritage Barbecue (San Juan Capistrano, California)
- Hogapalooza (Wayne, Arkansas)
- Hoodoo Brown BBQ (Ridgefield, Connecticut)
- Hurtado Barbecue (Arlington, Texas)
- Joe’s KC BBQ (Kansas City, Kansas)
- Lexington Betty Smokehouse (Chicago)
- Little Miss BBQ (Phoenix)
- Meat Mitch Barbecue (Leawood, Kansas)
- Operation BBQ Relief (Joplin, Missouri)
- Panther City BBQ (Fort Worth, Texas)
- Pappy’s Smokehouse (St. Louis, Missouri)
- Pig Beach BBQ (Astoria, New York)
- Smoque BBQ (Chicago)
- Soul & Smoke (Chicago)
- Sugarfire Smoke House (St. Louis, Missouri)
- Ubons BBQ (Yazoo City, Mississippi)
- Wright’s Barbecue (Johnson, Arkansas)
Goose Island announces a big Bourbon County change
Last week, Goose Island Beer Co. announced a big change for one of its biggest releases. Instead of single bottles, Bourbon County Brand Stout will be available in four packs in 10-ounce bottles. This is for the standard original release, not for the more coveted special bottles flavored with adjuncts. Varieties like Proprietor’s will continue to be available solo in 16.9-ounce bottles.
A news release rationalizes the changes, reasoning that the smaller bottles are ideal for side-by-side tastings with other Bourbon County varietals. Eater reached out to Goose Island for more details, including the pricing — the new four packs, available starting on Black Friday, will cost $25.99. A rep for the brewery says Goose just felt the beer is easier to enjoy in smaller bottles, that this was about “accessibility and occasion more than anything.”
The decline of craft beer has been widely reported, and Goose needed to do something to spice up its lineup after 30 years of making the most popular bourbon-barrelled beer of all time. There are also questions about its customer base, many of them getting older and shifting to whiskey, which has a lot less sugar than a stout. How mainstream is that behavior? 60 Minutes even aired a recent segment about whiskey barrels, which omitted any mention of their uses as beer vessels.
After a fatal shooting, Chicago shuts down a bar
The city has closed an Edgewater bar, Meet & Whiskey, after a shooting over the weekend outside the venue at 6341 N. Broadway, according to Block Club Chicago. Two people are dead and one is hospitalized, according to CBS Chicago. The shooting happened around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 10. The bar opened in 2022 and is located inside Porkchop, a mini barbecue chain that started years ago along Randolph Street.
Will Illinois eliminate the tipped minimum wage?
One Fair Wage, the group that pushed Chicago to eliminate the tipped minimum wage, is firing up its campaigns. In recent days, they’ve been active in New York, hoping to pass similar legislation. But they’re not done in the Land of Lincoln. A letter published in Crain’s is also asking Springfield lawmakers to make the same move and level the playing field in Illinois by passing a state law that would do the same. The tipped minimum wage is seen as a tax incentive for restaurants, but groups like One Fair Wage say restaurants and bar workers can be taken advantage of through wage theft.
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