Central Kitchen and Tap

Central Kitchen and Tap recently opened in the space at the northwest corner of Lawrence and Central formerly occupied by the Super Cup coffee shop. CK&T is doing something very different from the ordinary corner coffee shop, though, and more like the not-ordinary-comfort-food-made-from-scratch-and-oh-yeah-we-sell-booze kind of place.

I'm starting the thread based on eating one whole sandwich, but I spent a lot of time while I was there peering at the food that other eaters picked up, and even sat near the kitchen to watch & listen to the kitchen staff. So I need to pick someplace to start . . . Menu! CK&T is planning to serve lunch and dinner, [although at the moment they don't open until 5 pm while they're still in a shakedown process]. Menu has appetizers [hummus, a 'daily dip', fried or grilled shrimp, wings and 'Pork Sticks - braised mini shanks coated in bbq' - I'm still trying to figure out what a 'mini pork shank' is 'sposed to look like], soups, salads [both side & meal sized], sandwiches, dinner entrees, and a large passel of sides. Soups aren't well defined . . . soup of the day and the other soup of the day. The salads can have chicken or shrimp added to them, and are the usual dinner salad, 'kitchen sink' [aka garbage] salad and caesar. Sandwiches include burgers, a portobello 'burger', chicken, fish, shrimip salad, blt & club, cheesesteak, hot dog, brat, pot roast [looking forward to seeing how it compares to The Depot's] and "Italian Roasted Pork" which the kitchen workers kept referring to as "porchetta". Dinners include ribs, roast chicken, hanger steak, pork chops, and pasta configured a number of ways. There is a very nice collection of side dishes . . . they come with the dinner or a sandwich at 2 for $3.50. Sides include house-made chips, grilled asparagus, grilled corn, potato salad, onion rings, roasted potatoes, spanish rice, spinach & some other stuff I forget. There are also kids' meals, and they include a soft-serve ice cream cone for desert.

I think the idea here is not so much bar with food, but well-made food in a place that also serves booze. There are 3 beers on tap [2 macrobrews and Stiegl] and about 8-10 bottles, a mix of micro, import & macro, including the inexplicable and unavoidable PBR cans. I had a Great Lakes' Elliot Ness Amber with my dinner. There are 10 different varieties of wine, listed by variety rather than label or vintner. I also saw liquor, although the drinkers mostly had beer.

They seem to want to be kid friendly; there were several families with kids while I was there, and while it added to the noise level a bit, the kids appeared to be enjoying their dinners as well as their parents were.

The decor has changed very little from the Super Cup days; it mostly looks like they gave the place a really, really good scrubbing & a fresh coat of paint. Booths & tables are the same as before. Lighting fixtures are updated to an atrractive modernist/minimalst style.

From what I could see, portion sizes were quite large, even the sides. Many folks walked out with leftovers; I was very happy to see they use biodegradable take-out containers made of sugar cane waste . Prices are VERY reasonable - sandwiches in the $5-7 range, entrees range from $5 for half a chicken to $13 for a full slab of ribs. Sides, as I said before, are 2 for $3.50 for extremely generous portions.

All this description . . . how was the food?!? Good. Very good. I had the Italian Roast Pork sandwich, which was served on one of those square ciabatta rolls with garlic, oil & spinach. The pork itself was a rolled piece of . . . loin? My pig anatomy knowledge is failing me here. It was rolled pork flesh and fat - rather fatty for my tastes, but I think would be quite to the liking of some of youse. It was rolled with spices; fennel, garlic & black pepper for sure, not sure what else. It had been roasted and then browned on a griddle before serving. It was a very tasty sandwich. I had roasted ear of corn for one side. It had been cooked earlier, then browned a bit on the grill and dipped in some buttery stuff. I don't think it was pure butter. The corn was mediocre, frankly, but then I was hoping for something like the roast corn at the Wisconsin state fair, and it fell way short of that. My other side was the potato salad. GOOD, apparently house-made potato salad. Small white skin-on potatoes in a dressing that had mayo, sour cream, grainy mustard, celery, onion & probably other stuff. I really enjoyed it. When I ordered it, I was asked if I wanted bacon on top. Well, why wouldn't I want bacon? Truth be told, though, the salad didn't need it and the bacon may have disrupted the other creamy goodness going on. Live and learn. There was so much potato salad that I ended up taking some home. The pork sandwich was very rich, and I could barely finish it. Not because it was huge, but the fat made it very filling.

Presently, the place is organized as self-serve. You order your food & drinks from the host behind the counter [the very outgoing James - who looks more than a little like Ted Brunson from Chicago's Best to me], then go to a table and wait for your name to be called. I got there at JUST the wrong time . . . there were 3-4 families ordering in front of me when I arrived, and I had finished off my beer and could easily have downed another one by the time my food was up. The kitchen, from what my non-professional eyes could see, functioned pretty efficiently, but all of the food is prepared to order, and fresh, and that does take time [for example, I saw a sauteed spinach side being prepared from actual fresh spinach]. Maybe my bet bet is to avoid 7 pm dining there. Or get take-out from them. The place has been open maybe a week and a half, and they seem to be functioning and cooking well already. It was half full while I was there. It seems that the neighborhood was hungry, um, eager, for a place like this. It has the potential to become a neighborhood gem. I hope it reaches that potential.


Central Kitchen and Tap
4800 N Central Ave
(between Lawrence Ave & Gunnison St)
Chicago, IL 60630
(773) 853-0150

[there's a web address on the awning, but no actual web site yet]

Giovanna

A few friends and I met up here for lunch yesterday before a St Patrick's Day Jefferson Park pub crawl. We had a great experience and I can't wait to return.
I had the same roast pork sandwich Giovanna had and adored it. The very helpful counter guy (owner?) did advise that some people think it's too fatty and while it is rich, I didn't find it excessive. The stuffing is great with rosemary. I took the tomato, lettuce & purple onion from a companion's burger and when I order this again, I'm going to ask for these. A touch of mayo or perhaps some good mustard would have been alright but now I'm picking nits and I'm sure they would accommodate this type of request since they happily provided a cup of ranch to another companion. The sandwich is dressed with some of their very nice sauteed spinach.
I also tried the fries (better than average) and saffron rice (very good). Other people at the table got a burger, pot roast sandwich, chicken fingers and the corned beef & cabbage special ($6) and everyone was quite pleased. The potato salad with bacon already mentioned could have been very good too except that the potatoes were a bit undercooked.

Prices are very reasonable with my sandwich, two sides and a beer under $15. The plates are a very fun porcelained steel. There is a series of photos all around the dining room that are worth a look, too. Some are Jefferson Park institutions (Gale Street Inn, Edward Fox Photography) some are vintage Super Cup, the former occupant of the space for 30 years. They offer a 10% discount if you live in the 60630 zip code (and I do!) or if you work for the city which is a nice touch. The enthusiastic staff and local focus are nice enough on their own but the food puts this one right into the WIN column and I'm happy to recommend it.

They have a decent web site with menu, too:
http://www.centralkitchenandtap.com/

Going here with my husband tonight. I went to the old Super Cup once and have fond memories of the unusual bathroom, so I can't wait to see how it looks inside. Judging by the pics on their website, the same.

I must admit, our experience at Central Kitchen and Tap was quite mixed for my husband and I. We had been to the Jewel across the street just days before coming here and picked the restaurant for a semi-special evening out before my husband was to be going out of town to take care of his aging parents for a bit. Being the diner aficionado that I am. I had been to the old Super Cup almost a decade before with quite a memorable experience so I was happy to see the space in use again. We walked in and I felt a pang of flashbacks from the old Super Cup décor. It was like a diner met a pub and they had a baby which created a strange hybrid diner/pub-like atmosphere. That felt strange to us. We were a bit taken aback at the fact that there is an order counter and not tableside service which felt a wee bit off to me for some reason, another weird attraction, I guess.

My husband and I had perused the menu online and agreed on trying different things but my husband changed his mind at the last minute and he ended up getting what I got, the slow cooked ribs. His sides were the red potatoes and the coleslaw while mine were the potatoes and mac and cheese. I decided on a Great Lakes Eliot Ness while he settled on Coors Lite. I thought the ribs were good on their own, but we both hated that they were drowned in the suckingly sweet bbq sauce. Good ribs don’t have to be drowned in sauce. The sauce should be there to should compliment not overwhelm. My husband also didn’t care for the taste of rosemary on the ribs but what can I say, he is too damn oversensitive when it comes to rosemary. I liked my mac and cheese well enough and I thought it was decent. I’m not one for baked and/or dry mac and cheese, I love the creamy and soupy variety and this fit the bill nicely being soupy, however, I hated that the mac part was the penne pasta which is just a plain awkward choice of pasta for a mac and cheese as they are larger than your traditional tub, shell or spiral variety, especially with the soupy cheese. Trying to scoop it all up on a fork or spoon can be challenging. Husband disliked his coleslaw. He didn’t even think it resembled coleslaw, as it was dry and not your typical kind. He loves coleslaw in general but this was not amongst his favorite. The red potatoes reminded me of the ones I have gotten with dinner entrees at IHOP. They could have used a little more seasoning or flavor or both

The first post above echoes that Central Kitchen and Tap serves high quality made to order food. I don’t dispute that it is made to order at all. But high quality? I have to disagree. I saw nothing high quality in the food we ate. No more than your basic ordinary quality I can get at Caputo’s when I whip up dinner at home. Not terrible quality at all, but I fail to see anything special. I got the impression that the food would stand out more and is a bit out of the ordinary and away from the norm and a nice spin on some real good food. I didn’t think it was away from the norm at all. Honestly I thought it was your basic diner food with a pub spin, I suppose. I think if Central Kitchen and Tap shed the tap part and the pseudo pub-like atmosphere and opened up for breakfast they might have one hell of a good diner on their hands.

The guy at the counter was definitely nice and friendly and I like that they give a discount to those who live or work in the area, which we don’t but is still a nice touch for those who do. One thing that bugged my husband was a holdover from the Super Cup days, an incessant buzzing noise coming from some sort of refrigerator maybe. It really irritated him and he is not easily irritated (Well, except for by me). I gave him a sip of my Eliot Ness which he didn’t care for at all. He looked at my bottle and then posed the question “That’s a gold medal winner?” and proceeded to roll his eyes. What can I say? He tolerates Coors Lite and drinks that crap Walgreen’s labels as beer, Big Flats. Bleh! He still has a lot to learn from me. Sigh

All in all reasonable prices, empty restaurant on a Wednesday night, certainly not bad but nothing to go out of your way for. Husband thinks they could benefit from a visit from Chef Ramsey. Yea, he’s one of those reality show cooking competition nuts. What can I say?

Here's a roast pork sandwich (as discussed above) I enjoyed at Central Kitchen a few months ago. I found both meat and bread to be of very good quality and thought it quite unlike standard diner-style fare.



Central Kitchen & Tap
4800 N Central Av
Chicago
773-853-0150

I live half a block from Central Kitchen and really enjoy it. The roast pork sandwich shown above ismy favorite item on the menu. Friendly people there as well.

I thought the potatoes were nicely done and the spinach is a nice change of pace. It's on our regular rotation and I think I'm lucky to have it nearby.

Like I said, the food was fine and place was friendly but definately not something I would go out of my way for. And I swear those red potatoes reminded of the ones served at IHop.

I went last night with Mr. Pie and a friend. Friend and I both had the grilled pork chop, and we both agreed it was a fine chop—nicely seasoned, juicy, thick and tender. I had the cob and slaw sides, and though the slaw was fine the cob was excellent (also grilled). I don't think it was buttered, just seasoned, and really flavorful. Mr. Pie quite enjoyed his kitchen sink salad. I can't wait to return, actually, although I wish they had later hours, especially since they have a number of beers. I think I may have to swing by for a lunch one of these days when I forget my homemade one.

I went back for the herb chicken, asparagus and slaw. The asparagus was fine, but they didn't trim it, so I could only eat up to a point. The chicken was tender and juicy. It could have used more herb, but then couldn't we all. Not a bad meal: I'll be back to try something fishy.

Stopped in today and had the Pot roast sandwich, It was quite good (especially after fasting for a blood test) Hadn't seen much on the place of late think it is worth a visit, if you are in that area. Sandwich was nice and juicy, came with a horseradish sauce on the side. Served on a Ciabatta roll.

Can't repeat myself enough, the roast pork (porchetta) sandwich is just terrific.

Sometime in the last six months or so ago, they expanded the bar into the space to the north. It has different signage, I think they are calling the bar Eight Ball (?).
I'm sorry to say I haven't been to CKT since my earlier report almost two years ago. I really owe them another visit soon.

Anyone been here recently? I'm looking for a good place to eat before a show at the Copernicus Center and Central Kitchen & Tap popped up in my search.

Tobermory wrote:Anyone been here recently? I'm looking for a good place to eat before a show at the Copernicus Center and Central Kitchen & Tap popped up in my search.

Central Kitchen & Tap is closed. Has been for a few months now.

GNR Smak Tak is a fine option if you're near the Copernicus Center.

=R=

5961 N Elston Ave
Chicago, IL 60646
(773) 763-1123

ronnie_suburban wrote:GNR Smak Tak is a fine option if you're near the Copernicus Center.

=R=

5961 N Elston Ave
Chicago, IL 60646
(773) 763-1123

And ethnically correct.

Smakosz is a couple doors west of Central Kitchen and is also excellent polish food.

6 Corners Bistro just opened last weekend at 3930 n Cicero. Review will be forthcoming after a couple more meals but my initial visit was very promising. Eager staff, a chef who seems to have control and good food.