Life Line Tropical Island Cuisine & Juice Bar Restaurant

About thirty yards from the Big Guy’s apartment, there is a Kiss-Of-Death restaurant location – you know the kind: four restaurants started and three restaurants gone over the last five years. Recently, when the wind is off the lake in the morning, he began to notice the smell of success: some seriously good Caribbean cooking smells that included the joy of Jerk.

The Life Line Tropical Island Cuisine & Juice Bar restaurant (“Specializing in Jerk Chicken”) has opened at the corner of Damen and Chase in Rogers Park/West Ridge, just north of the intersection of Damen & Rogers Avenue. You must approach southbound on Damen or eastbound on Chase (enter at Ridge).

On Saturday afternoon, we did Menu Whiparound #1 and we will definitely be back soon for #2.

They offer a wide range of Island Delights in several categories, such as Jerk (chicken, shrimp, salmon, red snapper, catfish and pork), Curry (goat, chicken and shrimp), Dinners (Brown Stew Chicken, Brown Stew Catfish, Brown Stew Red Snapper, Stew Peas, Cow Foot, Oxtail, Steamed Fish) and Sides ( soup, rice & peas, steamed cabbage, callaloo, plantains, mac & cheese, candied yams) and breads (festival and bammy). They also do catering trays of most items. Life Line offers desserts and Jamaican soft drinks, as well as Caribbean Coolers.

We had the jerk chicken and the jerk catfish, both with the sauce on the side. That gave us the chance to taste the well-marinated chicken and catfish, without the heat. Both were very tasty and could be enjoyed by folks whose heat-tolerance is lower than the average LTHer. The sauce kicked up the heat and the flavor, but the meats were very good on their own.

We tried the rice & peas (good – like red beans & rice without the sauce), steamed cabbage (good), callaloo (very good, with a slight kick of heat) plantains (okay), mac & cheese (very good), festival and bammy (both very nice breads with crunchy outsides and softer insides).

The service was very friendly and accommodating, while island-paced. Not all items were available, though most were. When we asked for mac & cheese, the nice lady explained that today’s batch had not yet been made. We asked if we could have some leftovers from yesterday, with the understanding that it was not fresh. The cook scooped out a hunk and re-heated it for us, resulting in a very good patch of top-crust and a dynamite serving of creamy m&c that had some small pieces of celery and a touch of something sweet. Maybe this is the way we should always ask for it.

Prices are reasonable (whole jerk chicken = $8.59; most lunch specials = $6.99) and the ginger beer is a treat. We’ll be back.

Life Line Tropical Island Cuisine & Juice Bar Restaurant
7247 N. Damen
Chicago, IL
773-262-4818
773-262-4888
Mon-Thurs 9a-10p; Fri-Sat 9a-11p; Sun Noon-7p

jim-

I happened to drive by Life Line the other day and was intrigued. It's not a way I normally go even though I live nearby, so I can see how it's a doomed location. Thanks for the write-up. I'm looking forward to trying it soon.

Tried this place the other day, and it was quite good. My standards for Jerk are pretty high.. my go-to place is Uncle Joe's Jerk on approx 82nd and Cottage Grove, which is IMHO the best jerk-chicken in the city, after all

Tropical Island is actually slightly related to Uncle Joe's! Uncle Joe's is next door (and physically attached to) a juice bar, of which Tropical Island above is a branch! It is, however, their first actual restaurant - in their 2 southside locations they are only a juicebar.

Overall, a solid place I think - the jerk-chicken I got to go was pretty good, maybe not quite as good as Uncle Joe's but good in an absolute sense. The sauce was pretty good too - it was actually *hot*, not just watered down, which was great! They also gave me a sample of the juice, which was actually quite excellent!

Ovearll a good place, and I'll definitely be back - and yet another place I would never have foudn without LTH, even when I knew where it was it wasnt easy to find Nice little oasis in the area though - decent space, an attempt made to make it appear "tropical" in look... and good jerk. Good to have this place on the Northside!

c8w

Driving south on Damen toward Rogers in the rain tonight, this place shone like a beacon of Caribbean sun. I had a Jerk chicken dinner with calaloo and a slice of caramel cake. The chicken was the best Jerk I've had in Rogers Park, perhaps Chicago - smoky, complex, juicy, clearly fired on a wood grill. The real deal.

I would've preferred a bit more heat, but on reflection it allowed the good smoke flavor and complex spicing to shine through. Rice/peas and calaloo were fine. Ask for extra sauce, it's delicious.

A half bird with rice/peas, a side and bread is an affordable $8.99.

All my Rogers Park people, your Jerk Chicken prayers have been answered. This place is going into my pickup rotation along with Bismillah, Harold's and Big Buns.

Anyone know if they are still open? I called their listed number a few times and it was off the hook. I sure hope not because they had the best jerk chicken, IMHO on the North Side. Real smoke and everyting.

Habibi wrote:Anyone know if they are still open? I called their listed number a few times and it was off the hook. I sure hope not because they had the best jerk chicken, IMHO on the North Side. Real smoke and everyting.

When did you call? The OP listed them as closing at 7 on Sundays...

A few times last week, all well before I have picked up food from them on other occasions.

Had the same problem - stopped by a couple weeks ago, they were open but "out" of jerk chicken, so we opted to grab a take-out menu - when we called, we got a disconnected number. Driving by tonight, the windows were all shuttered. It isn't looking good, I'm afraid.