LOGAN SQUARE — Chef Gabriel Babcock is proud to say his new restaurant is “one giant d— joke” — and it offers the late-night munchies Logan Square had been lacking.
The aptly named Sausage King, 2436 N. Milwaukee Ave., opened Dec. 15 with a bang, rolling out a full menu that is “straight-up food porn,” Babcock said. It is open until 3 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Those looking to soak up grease after a night of drinking can order a “G Spot:” a lamb and beef gyro on pita. There’s also a “Red Rocket” Polish sausage and the “Big D” Chicago-style char-dog.
Patrons are greeted by an inflatable male sex doll with a sharpie mustache. The restaurant’s playlist is “a bunch of dirty songs I found about food,” Babcock said. Decor includes a futon, an old dining room table, some patio chairs “and a bunch of other stuff I just brought from home,” Babcock said.
An artist, Zoot, is airbrushing a mural meant for mature audiences inside the restaurant.
Babcock, a self-proclaimed “hobo” who stumbled into a career as a Chicago cook and bartender, co-owns Sausage King with Matthew Schmehl and his wife, Anesha Schmehl, who ran a food cart business out of Milwaukee by the same name. It’s a nod to Abe Froman, “The Sausage King Of Chicago” from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
Late-night “drunk eats” options in Logan Square “have led to nothing but bad experiences for me,” Babcock said.
So Babcock’s menu includes “cinnamon twisty things” and a “beef supreme Funchwrap,” which is “a big f— you to you-know-who,” he said.
Babcock’s also serving up all-day McGriddles “because they never have them at times I’m awake,” he said.
“The menu is made out of spite,” Babcock said. “‘It’s like, ‘I gave you a chance, Chicago.'”
Babcock said he ran away from home as a child and spent his formative years hopping freight trains around the country, strumming a ukulele for money and holding cardboard signs reading “Too ugly to prostitute, too stupid to steal.”
“Participating in society with a world full of asses was never something I was that interested in,” Babcock said. “I didn’t expect to live this long. So, having this place is my bonus round.”
Babcock kicked a drug habit before his 30th birthday and went to culinary school after years of picking up odd jobs in restaurants whenever he was tight on cash, he said.
Riding the freight trains “always led back to Chicago,” Babcock said. He took his first real job at The Promontory and bounced around the city’s “fast-casual” food scene as a baker, chef and bartender.
Matthew Schmehl and Babcock have long lived in Logan Square and met as roommates off Craigslist.
During the pandemic, Matthew Schmehl stumbled across the empty storefront on Milwaukee Avenue, and he “remembered my old roommate happened to be a chef,” he said. The Schmehls and Babcock teamed up.
The spot was tight and a serious fixer-upper, but the rent was reasonable for a “increasingly corporate” stretch of the avenue, Babcock said.
“It was kind of like a hole in the matrix,” Babcock said.
Babcock and the Schmehls poured the bulk of their budget into quality food, filling the space with leftover apartment furnishings and suggestive posters, “enough to make the place feel homey,” Babcock said.
Just about everyone who’s come to Sausage King so far “has loved the bit,” Babcock said.
“And anyone who doesn’t get it has already f—ed off to bed,” Babcock said. “You get a few drinks in you and start acting like a human again. People take the sticks out their a–holes, let loose and be themselves.”
With rising food costs and challenges getting labor, the “DIY punk spots” Babcock would conk-out at after a night of drinking have come-and-gone, he said.
But late-night drunk eats “will always be the social glue of this industry,” he said.
“We get janitors and service workers and businessmen in suits at 1:30 a.m. with the girls they met at the bar. I’m always surprised by how many walks-of-life are out here partying,” Babcock said. “And here I am, an ex-junkie train-hopper chef, and we’re all in this space on the same level. Everyone is at ease being themselves. This is where the memories happen.”
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