Once you start talking to Dylan Lipe, Director of Culinary Operations at BBQ Supply Co., it’s clear he knows more about meat and the science of barbecue than perhaps anyone you have ever met before. Yes, you should have paid more attention in chemistry, but why not just enjoy some of the best Texas-style barbecued brisket, ribs, sausage, and pulled pork and chicken you’ll find north of the Longhorn state.
North Siders have been doing just that at BBQ Supply Co.’s original Rogers Park location since 2010, and in November 2017, the restaurant opened a second location on 53rd Street in Hyde Park.
Dylan and Jared Leonard are co-owners and partners in the restaurant group Stone Soup Collective, which includes BBQ Supply Co. as well as other properties. They met through mutual friends at events in the barbecue community, and teaming up was a natural fit.
The restaurant has been a welcome addition for a neighborhood long in need of local barbecue spot. Dylan is the Director of Culinary Operations and “pitmaster,” which basically translates into making sure everything you eat at BBQ Supply Co. is delicious. With the launch of their outdoor seating and cocktail menu, the corner of 53rd Street and Kimbark Avenue will be the perfect place to spend a summer night, “enjoying barbecue outside the way it’s meant to be,” said Dylan.
Growing up in a small town in downstate Illinois, Dylan started cooking as a teenager for neighborhood catering events, and later attended nearby Rend Lake College for Culinary Arts. Classically trained as a chef, Dylan worked in the Caribbean at several resorts before exclusively focusing on barbecue in the past eight years, and he even competes in barbecue competitions in his free time.
BBQ Supply Co. starts with quality meats from providers including Idaho’s Snake River Farms for Wagyu beef and Wichita Packing Company’s Duroc pork sourced from a farm in Iowa. Meat is cooked in 8,000-lb Texas smokers over a hardwood fire – the wood is so essential to the taste that Jared trucks in quarter-split post oak logs from central Texas.
Before the restaurant opened, Dylan was a regular in Hyde Park. He and his wife lived in Pullman, were friends with farmers at the 61st Street Farmers Market, and participated in cooking events at the Experimental Station. He would flip through the stacks at Hyde Park Records while his wife did yoga at Promontory Point, not yet knowing he’d be running a restaurant just a few doors east. He likes being a part of a “cool, diverse neighborhood – it’s fun to talk with all the different guests we get in – from students, to university employees, to people that…have lived here 30 or 40 years.”
The restaurant has a supper club look, with wood, leather, and classic gold hand-painted signage, and with the addition of Wagyu beef short ribs on Friday nights and smoked prime rib on Saturday nights, Dylan says, “They make you feel like you’re at a steakhouse when you’re in a barbecue joint.”
BBQ Supply Co.’s menu includes truffle mac and cheese, cornbread, beans, cole slaw, deviled egg potato salad, and house-made pickles. The restaurant’s drink menu includes 24 different whiskeys and bourbons, over one dozen local craft beers, and five signature house cocktails. Desserts include peach cobbler, apple pie, old fashioned banana pudding, and ice cream in rotating seasonal flavors – with bourbon vanilla milkshakes ready for summer.
BBQ Supply Co. is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
1301 E. 53rd Street
872.244.3913
bbqsupply.com
