Uncle J’s B.B.Q., home to some of Chicago’s best barbecue, closed after 8 years

Another of Chicago’s great South Side barbecue joints has decided to close. Uncle J’s B.B.Q. (502 E. 47th St.), which opened in 2014, served its last rib tip and hot link combo Saturday.

The Bronzeville restaurant made the announcement on its Facebook page: “It saddens me to say Uncle J’s last day open was Saturday. It has been a tough decision to make, thank you all!”

As I noted only a few weeks ago, Chicago has a magnificent style of barbecue that mostly survives on the South Side. While most places serve ribs and pulled pork, the most popular items are rib tips and hot links smoked in a glass-sided rectangular pit called an aquarium smoker. It takes real skill to smoke meat this way, and unfortunately, a number of great places have closed over the past 10 years.

During its prime, few spots smoked better rib tips and hot links than Uncle J’s. In fact, the last time I ranked the best versions of the dish in 2019, I placed Uncle J’s rib tips at No. 2, noting that “there’s no doubting the tiny operation serves the biggest and juiciest rib tips around.”

The restaurant was born after the end of another classic Chicago barbecue institution closed. Uncle John’s BBQ, one of the most acclaimed barbecue restaurants in Chicago history, closed in 2013 after Mack Sevier decided to retire. But before he did, his stepdaughter Ella Hughes, and her husband, Jimmie, convinced him to give them some lessons. They hired Brian Turner, who had been working with Sevier, and even purchased Sevier’s old smoker. (Sevier sadly died a year later in 2015.)

We reached out to the Hughes family for a comment and will update with any further news.

nkindelsperger@chicagotribune.com

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