Oak Park Dogs - Specialty Turkey/Chicken Sausages

Opening up in the old Ms Lucille's Soul Food Kitchen, a quiet place right across from the Oak Park Village Hall that gave it a good go with good solid food but never enough traffic to stay afloat there is a new Big Dawg in town.

Oak Park Dogs
108 Madison St, Oak Park
(708) 848-DOGS (3647)

The layout is the same tired decor as the previous place but with a potentially exciting focus on sausages using the alternative Turkey or Chicken. The owner has a love for the alternative meats and special relationship with his butcher/sausage maker to bring some interesting combinations to the table. Every beef item on the menu has an alternate meat version.

When we visited earlier this week, we focused on the standards. Well prepared and tasty Vienna products...


Chili Dog, Maxwell Polish and Chicago Style. Skin on sausages (with a strong snap) and hand cut fries.

The place was busy in the evening with most coming in with the coupons offering a $1 hot dog. A family, a single guy with gentle banter in the room amongst the staff and customers. About halfway through the meal they came out with samples of the specialty sausages; Chicken and Apple and Turkey with Mozzarella and Roasted Garlic.

Very Good! It will be interesting to see what his love will be providing us with! I mentioned that we will need to be kept abreast of his creations of the day, maybe a Facebook Page and he is looking into a way to get the word out.

Small and simple but with a big vision. We wish him the best!

I know whatI'm doing fo lunch now - thanks PITD!

Panther in the Den wrote:Chili Dog, Maxwell Polish and Chicago Style. Skin on sausages (with a strong snap) and hand cut fries.

Skin on dog looks particularly appealing, like it will give good snap!

is that the turkey polish, Maxwell style in the upper right? If so, I had it the other day and thought it was very tasty. Glad to see they're handing out samples and thinking about some marketing.

I'll definitely go back to get to try other of their turkey and specialty sausages.

Good find, Panther!
This is a place the entire seebee household will really enjoy if the chicky / turkey snausages are decent.
Exciting indeed!

Closed

No hours posted so I'm not usre if they close Sundays or if today is an exception.

zoid wrote:Closed

No hours posted so I'm not usre if they close Sundays or if today is an exception.

M-Th = 11 am to 8 pm
F-Sa = 11 to 9 pm
Sunday = Closed

Thanks Panther

House-cut fries?

teatpuller wrote:House-cut fries?

Yup! Thicker than usual and skin on and could be improved by a double fry.

rehorn wrote:is that the turkey polish, Maxwell style in the upper right? If so, I had it the other day and thought it was very tasty. Glad to see they're handing out samples and thinking about some marketing.

I'll definitely go back to get to try other of their turkey and specialty sausages.

Rehorn, something is not adding up here. Did you specifically ask them for a turkey polish sausage? And Also, Panther - IS that indeed a turkey polish sausage? I'm going to go dig the turkey polish I got from OPD today outta the trash so I can take a picture - you'll understand. I guarantee it.

So, Jr and I went to OPD for a lunch voyage today. Glad I went. I'll go back in a month or so if they are still open.
The folks there are super nice, super friendly, and I hope they succeed beyond their wildest dreams. It's gonna take a while though. My last interaction with them was 3 of them apologizing profusely after they all tried 4 different times to ring up the 3 items I ordered properly. I was not ired in any way at all, I even told them that they did not ring up one of the items because the total was too low. I politely refused an offer of a few cans of soda on the house because of the errors and time. I was fine with all of it - no big deal. New place, small mom and pop place, I definitely understand - no prob. It was pretty comical actually. This place had me thinking I was stuck in the middle of a Cleveland Show episode.


I ordered a turkey polish, a turkey pretzel dog, and their special snausage of the month - the chicken apple sausage. No pics, by the time we got home, it was a little past jr's lunch time, and he was already nodding off. Had to get him fed. I promise tho, I'm gonna dig that turkey polish out of the garbage, and post a pik.
So, I don't know what these ppl are thinking here about their food, and how it's presented, but anyone with a mild amount of sense would see a major issue right off the bat. The turkey pretzel dog was about 5 times too much bun for the little weenie. I'm not kidding at ALL. This was a standard louis rich / oscar mayer turkey weenie in a bun that was closer to sub sandwich size than sausage size. It may have worked for a foot long fat polish, but it was not even close to being correct for a lil ol hot dog. It was funny. The dog was definitely lost, and had no chance of standing out being engulfed in that giant pretzel bun. It would not have worked in a plain ol white bread bun that size, much less a PRETZEL ROLL. Go try one. I dare you. Seriously. There is no way they sampled this menu item. The Turkey Polish I was served, looked nothing like Panther's pik. It looked nothing like any turkey polish I've ever seen. This had me hopeful that it was made with care by a butcher, or perhaps in house. It was disgusting. Flavorless, dull gray, crumbly, and gamey. Gross. Jr and I both agreed...garbage. The chicken apple sausage was absolutely delicious, and if I had known, I would have ordered two of them. It was a reall winner, in my book, and I highly recommend save for one issue. It was about the size of my thumb. It was nestled in a reg hot dug bun, and the bun length was twice the size of the sausage. Again - not sure what they are thinking over there. If I were to go back right now, I'd order two chicken apple sausages (maybe 3) and ask for them on a pretzel roll. Also, ask for the fries well done. They are in the camp of limp, soggy fries over there. There is some promise, but someone over there needs to try the food, instead of just putting it on the menu. I guarantee you you'll laugh out loud at the pretzel dog bun / roll ratio, and also the little nub of a sausage that the chicken apple sausage is. That Chicken apple sausage was delicious tho. I won't go into the other service issues because as a startup mom/pop place, they will surely get better, although I will say this - I'm glad I did not let the young lady take my money before totalling the order up like she wanted to - I'm sure that would have been an even bigger mess. I'm gonna go dig that polish out of the trash now. A picture is worth a thousand words, and I guarantee you it tasted exactly how it looked.

I just had the Maxwell beef polish and it was pretty good, nice bit of char in it.
My fries were nice and crispy/brown on the outside and still tender on the inside.
I also had a Chicago dog that was mediocre. Not much snap, soggy bun, not great.

Hi Seebee -- I definitely ordered a Turkey Polish Maxwell style. Panther will have to confirm, but upon re-reading his initial post, I think everything he ordered was the standard beef version, as he says they focused on the standards(?) -- though my turkey polish looked an awful lot like the picture of his in the topper upper right of his post.

I also hear you re: the service issues. I forgave a bit of that because it was opening week, but it took quite a while for our dogs to appear. I actually was getting a bit miffed until they came -- and then the tide turned for me because I really enjoyed what I understood to be a turkey polish. Now I feel the need to return to order another one to see if it's gray and icky like the one you described!

P.S. I'd love to see a pic of that polish from the trash!

I snapped some piks already. Will post in a few days. After the last Halloween travelling, I lost the patch cord for the camera. I vow to find the damn thing on bird day.

Found the patch cord for the camera:

Turkey Polish:

I dug it outta the garbage and put it on Jr's plate. In this first pic, at about 10 o'clock, you can see the contrast of colors because there's still a piece of the chicken apple sausage. It's nice and pink with a few green flecks in it.


These next two are just me trying to get a decent shot. This thing was gray, dull, crumbly, gamey, and had not even a trace of garlic or any other spice. It tasted exactly like it looked:

Nice photos - thanks.

The turkey polish I had definitely had more of a resemblance to the beef one (polish) taken by Panther. It did not have a colorless/gray hue to it at all and had a firmer inside texture to it as compared with the mealier looking texture of what you were served. In fact, while eating it, I was marveling at how much like a regular (beef) polish the turkey polish was, but now I'm starting to wonder what the heck I ate (?). I swear I ordered a turkey polish Maxwell style for $3.80....

Do any of the many Oak Parkers out there know why Oak Park chose not to follow the Chicago street numbering system? I live in Elmwood Park and for the most part my world is to the east making it easy to know where places are by their address.

The exception is Oak Park (other than North Avenue and Roosevelt Road).

Oak Park Dogs @108 Madison Street is a prime example, isn't this about 6500 West

I will be stopping in this weekend

What's even crazier is that on the border streets (eg., North), the Chicago numbering system is used.

I should add: all of the North/South streets in OP (except Harlem and OP Av) do not run north of North Av.; in other words the grid of OP is slighly askew from Chicago to the north.

Oak Park Dogs
108 Madison St #1, Oak Park
(708) 848-3647

Appears to have closed (or maybe the sign blew down?) and ...


Sheena's Soulfood & Deli

... has moving in. Drove by tonight at about 5:30 pm and it was not open. Maybe for lunch? The window looks the same (including the taco special sign).

Oak Park Dogs gave it a good go. Specialty sausages and turkey alternatives for many standard fast food items (burger, pastrami, hot dog). Never busy though.

[s]I thought it was soul food before Oak Park Dogs?[/s]

Yup! It was!