As I'm writing this, the inspector from the Chicago Department of Health is going through the kitchen, checking us out so that we can get our certificate to begin food service. I don't know what to expect; the kitchen is beautiful, and thinking back on some of the run-down, ancient, falling apart at the seams places that I've seen in my time, I can't believe that we'll have a problem. But, you never know. So I'm sitting here, biting my nails, while my guys take them through. Better to have me out of the way where I can't open my mouth and say something stupid. In these situations, it's better to say nothing at all then to offer to much and end up having to redo some very expensive work. Stay tuned, it will be over (for better or for worse) soon

R

Chicago City Hall and the Rhinehart restaurant show

Just back from Milwaukee where I attended the Rhinehart restaurant show. We had to go up there because buying at the show got us a big discount for the next five weeks on most of the things we purchase. All in all it was a lot of pretty mediocre food, but the deals were good and we found some things that we'd been missing/looking for.
I filed the retail food license application with the City of Chicago on Tuesday morning before I left for Milwaukee. Chicago has come a long way in the last fifteen years, at least in the way that it handles small business affairs. It used to be that you would go down first thing in the morning, prepared to wait all day to see someone, and then usually they didn't know what they were talking about, or they were too lazy to try to help you if every single thing on your work wasn't perfect. Now you ride up to the eighth floor and have an interview with an account advisor. They ask you what it is you're trying to accomplish, run a check on relevant city regulations, and then print a customized application telling you what it is that you have to do in order to get the application accepted. There's still a good deal of waiting, but they open at 8 AM and if you get your butt down there first thing, it usually goes pretty smooth. I was in and out in twenty minutes, which left me plenty of time for a good breakfast at Lou Mitchell's before the train ride up to Milwaukee.

Getting this sucker open

So, I'm really pressed for time, but I want to post an update. The crew finished the main part of the kitchen construction yesterday. If you are building a restaurant in Chicago, the crew at Charles Bender and Associates (Ben and Mike and Hector and all the guys) are the absolute best. There is no other company I know of that can deliver a project on time and on budget and come up with helpful suggestions all along the way to make the project work. They're extremely busy, and hard to book, but they're worth it. If you want to get their contact information, drop me a line and I'll pass your information along. We're going to be testing ribs and rubs and sauces this week, and Tuesday I'm going up to Milwaukee to the Reinhart restaurant show to buy a bunch of stuff for the kitchen. Got to go now, many things to do, but I'll update this with menu and pictures soon

Ric

The Menu

Finalizing the first draft of the menu today. You can see it here: www.sheffieldschicago.com/menu_1.htm and here: www.sheffieldschicago.com/menu_2.htm. I'm going to collect all the logos we were presented for consideration along the way and try to post them here also. We should be open in a couple of weeks. This is a southern style BBQ menu, presented in a bar room setting. So the big challenge is to make this work with what we've got going on already. Sheffield's has been around for twenty-seven years and its been years since we tried food service, so this is a big transition. The difference between now and then is, we're jumping in whole hog this time (BBQ, Hog, get it?) and committing to the kitchen 100%.
Why BBQ? We specialize in craft-brewed beers; google anything about Chicago and good beer and you'll see what I mean, or check out the web-site www.sheffieldschicago.com. And our big draw is our beer garden in the summer. So what goes with beer and beer gardens better than BBQ? We have big picnic tables outside, and, again, the casual feel of picnic and summer, under our old cottonwood tree, felt right for a smokehouse style menu. Stay tuned

Getting a new restaurant started

Sheffield's Beer Garden, my iconic Chicago tavern (if I do say so) will soon be opening a smokehouse right here on premise. Yes, smoked Baby-back ribs, Pulled Pork, Texas style brisket, Chicken, etc. We're using only minimally processed, humanely raised, antibiotic free meats and we're keeping it simple, just a few things, done with attention to ingredients and techniques. This is a first posting; I don't have any idea about constructing a blog, and I really don't have the time. But I think it will be fun to chronicle the progress of this project, and to let you watch over my shoulder as it happens.

Ric Hess
Chicago, Illinois
April 3, 2007