BBQ in Bourbonnais. Jimmy Jo's

So earlier this week, I received a tip from Cbot that a new BBQ place had opened in Bourbonnais. As I was heading down Wednesday for Thanksgiving in Decatur, it seemed a nice point to stop for dinner.

Jimmy Jo's advertises themselves as a Texas style BBQ place, a style that more often than not turns out to be disappointing up here. As I leave my car to enter the restaurant I am greeted by smoke ( a good sign). As I enter, there is butcher paper everywhere (another good sign). Butcher paper on the tables, and behind the counter, and even on the walls advising that they smoke with hickory and applewood, what a smoke ring is, and other BBQ 101 type knowledge such as why they don't serve the food sauced unless it is requested that way (yet another good sign).

I ordered the sampler platter for $15.99 which included pulled pork, a smoked chicken leg, brisket, ribs, and a hot link and two sides which I opted for beans and chili.

The pulled pork was fork pulled, and had a nice ring on it. After the first few bites I was surprised that the pork had not picked up very much smoke flavor. However, after putting some of the carolina vinegar based sauce on it, it seemed to pick up more of the smoky notes. Overall it was good, not great.

The smoked chicken was alright, but not worth writing about.

The brisket was one of the stars on the platter. IMO, better than Smoques. It had a beautiful ring, picked up the smoky flavor without becoming bitter, and the thicker cut of the pieces was very tender and had just the right amount of fat. The thin Texas style sauce was ok too and paired well with it, but I am not a fan of that style of sauces. The brisket just didn't needit.

The ribs were slightly overdone, but that could just be that I showed up there at almost 8. St. Louis style, and they had potential. I want to try them again before I report on them.

The hot link was also exceptional, juicy, smoky and a nice red peppery afterkick. The casing had great snap to it as well. Definitely worth a trip back, and if you are heading down to the C-U area, worth a visit.

Jimmy Jo's
665 N. Convent
Bourbonnais
815-933-7500
www.jimmyjosbbq.com

sounds great, was it off I-57 ? did you see the cooker, what kind was it

Phil,

It isn't far off of I-57, probably about 5 minutes. It is located right on Rt 45 which becomes Convent St in town there.

I didn't notice the type of smoker. One more note on the ribs, when I say they were overcooked, they were not dry or anything like it. The meat just pulled away from the bone a little too easy. Flavor was good though.

Glenn

Here is some info on Jimmy Jo's. I emailed them a few weeks back and this is what he wrote back...

From: Jimmy Jos (jimmyjosbbq@sbcglobal.net)
All meats are smoked anywhere from 3 hours for chicken to 12 hours for brisket and pork. Smoked in our southern pride smoker using apple and Hickory. Meat is bought through US Foods out of Streator, ribs out of KC. Turkey is smoked as well. Thanks for your email, hope to see you soon, ask for a tour of the smoker.

Jimmy Jo

Check out there web site >> http://www.scottjacksonstudio.com/Jimmy_JosBBQ/JJBBQ_Home.html

The Kankakee area is somewhere that I've meant to take the kids to see whatever natural delights are to be seen there (specifically, this park), but the lack of a lunch destination kept it pushed down the list behind other more appetizing destinations.

This thread changed that, and with a beautiful fall day in hand, we headed to Bourbonnais for Jimmy Jo's and nature.

As noted above, Jimmy Jo's is aiming for Texas style barbecue, and the way the building sits on the highway, less restaurant than roadside meat warehouse, instantly reminded me of a lot of the Texas places, such as in Elgin or Llano. Yes, that's a Shiner beer neon sign in the window.



Also, like Louie Mueller's, say, but unlike a gussied-up city place like Smoque, they know that if you have something to say to your customers, there's no better way to say it than on butcher paper tacked to the wall.



Clearly they've felt the need to explain slow-smoked barbecue to customers used to some other thing calling itself barbecue. They use Alto-Shaam Smoker/Hold ovens, I don't know a lot about those but it was easy to see the effects of the system-- on the plus side, the ribs and brisket had a definite smoke ring and reasonable, if not Texas-heavy, smoke taste; but on the minus side, brisket in particular was a little mushy/soggy from the holding time. Still, this was definitely in the top third of barbecue in the Chicago area, the St. Louis ribs in particular were quite good:



and the brisket was likable enough, but would have been better a half hour or an hour earlier:



Of the sides, the beans were easily the standout, with rich molasses/BBQ sauce flavor with a hint of spice, and little chunks of burnt end in them. Cole slaw was bland and too mayonnaisy, and corn was boiled to death (as it almost always is, that's why I don't order it out). They have three sauces-- the "Chicago-style" sweet-and-spice tinged sauce is actually better than most sauces you get here, more depth to it. The "Texas" sauce was my favorite because it lowers the sweet and ups the spice, although I'd say it still was closer to many Chicago sauces than to what I've had in Texas. I tasted the last, the North Carolina vinegar style, even though we didn't have pulled pork to go with it, but it was way too vinegary (the same problem I had with Brand BBQ's). I know they use vinegar in North Carolina, but not so much it clears your sinuses on the first taste.

Anyway, this is a solid, if not great yet, bbq place well worth checking out, and certainly based on past reports of the direness of the Kankakee area food scene, it appears to have singlehandedly raised the level of dining there, at least by offering LTHers one good option in the area. Though if you're hungry for French dressing on your pizza afterwards, there is a Monicel's right around the corner.

Thanks, Glennpan and Cbot, for alerting me to this place. As for the park, it's a small-scale version of what's far grander at Starved Rock some miles to the west, but the kids had a good time with the simplest of pleasures (including squeezing the goo from inside honey locust bean pods, which has an amazing banana-liqueur flavor-- thanks Nance Klehm!)

Mike,

Nice pics and nice post too. Kankakee River state park is a nice day trip, they have a jogging path that is picturesque, and the canoe rental in the summer is very reasonable.

I think Jimmy Jo's is probably still ironing some kinks out with how new they are. For me the ribs could have been pulled of sooner and the brisket was great, for you it was the opposite. Hopefully they will improve on the inconsistencies. I enjoyed the beans as well. The chili I had was a little strange, the texture was almost that of just overly shredded pulled pork. I have to head down that way in a couple of weeks, so I will try it again.

Mike G wrote:They use Alto-Shaam Smoker/Hold ovens,

"so easy, a caveman could do it"

stopped in jimmy jo's today. order ribs & brisket and two side's (beans& slaw)to go. got in my truck ,open the box white bread on top& they where spare ribs .outstanding is the one word for the ribs, brisket & beans . the slaw was ok brisket was cut about 3/8 thick , nice. i will be going back to eat there. service was great . manger come over & talked a bit. he is a( kcbs )guy . this is a bbq joint mr. green like's it

The crew and I went to Jimmy Jo's tonight bout 6:30 pm tonight and ordered the sampler platter that had ribs, pulled pork, chicken leg, brisket and a hot link. Got beans and chips for the two sides. After order was placed a girl behind the counter said we are out of ribs right now do you want rib tips? I said for real? No ribs now?? She said ya not till tomorrow sum time. I said ok to the tips.
Wife was not real happy there were no ribs....Fryday night...6:30 pm and out of ribs..HUH!?!
Ok that was kinda grim but the worst was yet to come!
I will break it down sorta quick..rib tips were GRIM, dry, COLD maybe room temp. or a bit above, toasted shoe leather top, full of fat, little meat was to be found on any of them and did I say DRY, no flavor or smoke to them.
Chicken leg, pretty cold again, dry, NO flavor, smoke was not there. Gave it to my lil dude and he said it was not good, caught him pouring salt on it to add some kinda love/flavor to it.
Pulled pork, same boat as the tips and chicken.
Hot link was cold and had some good spice to it, but no smoke or real good flavor to it besides the heat with the spice.
Brisket was again COLD, no smoke ring to be found, smoke or flavor was gone or never there to begin with.
Man i sorta hate to sound like a broken bad record....but to sum it up this meal was BAD.
Felt/tasted like all of our food was sitting out on the counter or in a little cold cave for hours.
Bad times........BAD TIMES

cant wait to get back to jimmy jo's . i just check there web site . like the johnny cash song on it

philw wrote:cant wait to get back to jimmy jo's . i just check there web site . like the johnny cash song on it

I hope you have a much better meal then our's that night. The night we were there I noticed they were not busy and a few people came in after us and I think left empty handed. I know for sure we just got some cold, old and dried out meats and my first visit to this place was grim. Need to mention I did travel 40+ miles out of my way to hit this spot to...Double grim...LOL! Report back with what ya find.

G Wiv wrote:

Mike G wrote:They use Alto-Shaam Smoker/Hold ovens,

"so easy, a caveman could do it"

Thanks for the posts and the feedback on Jimmy Jo's. I wanted to answer 2 questions that came up. We use a Southern Pride SPK 500 smoker, the alto shams are used only to hold already smoked meats and side dishes, nothing is cooked in the alto shams, they were bought used for a great price and work well for holding product.

Thanks

Jim Johanek aka Jimmy Jo

jimmy thanks for clearing that up . i have to get back to your place soon thanks for the great bbq

Thanks Phil! Ask for David or myself next time your in.

Jim

JimmyJo wrote:Thanks Phil! Ask for David or myself next time your in.

Jim

i have talked to david before , but i sure will.
thanks

After our not so good meal at Jimmy Jo's I did email them and let then know about what went down and how our food was. Did not here back from anyone in about a month and after sending a few emails. Got a email from them offering me a $25.00 gift card and to say sorry...give us another try. I think they forgot to check the company email box that was set up thru there web site.
Got the card a few days ago, that was cool and good business they did this for us.
Will visit again and post up GOOD news this time.....i hope!