ronnie_suburban wrote:Ok, folks. While we all love a good train wreck, the personal attacks and name-calling need to stop immediately. It's fine to discuss the tangential issues about the place here -- hell, a Moderator included it in the subject line he created -- but please, let's keep it civil.

Thanks,

=R=
for the Moderators

I'm all for keeping it civil - I'm just waiting for a simple response to my simple question (post #21). The poster made remarks about this *specific* restaurant and the need to "strategize" and rather than respond to the query about how/what/why has instead chosen to continue to paint with the broad brush and then, further, attack LTHforum posters. Am I asking too much?

Kman wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Ok, folks. While we all love a good train wreck, the personal attacks and name-calling need to stop immediately. It's fine to discuss the tangential issues about the place here -- hell, a Moderator included it in the subject line he created -- but please, let's keep it civil.

Thanks,

=R=
for the Moderators

I'm all for keeping it civil - I'm just waiting for a simple response to my simple question (post #21). The poster made remarks about this *specific* restaurant and the need to "strategize" and rather than respond to the query about how/what/why has instead chosen to continue to paint with the broad brush and then, further, attack LTHforum posters. Am I asking too much?

No but if it were me, I'd consider the context of the piece she wrote at Chicagoist and let it go.

=R=

In the original post, I included reference to the Wrigleyville area, which was designated as one of several Douche Vortices in Chicagoist, because it's not an area that we on LTH usually consider very promising in terms of food options, and we're all (or mostly) about the food here. Discussions sometimes veer into other areas, and sometimes that's just fine, until those other areas provoke such heated and angry discussion as to be counterproductive. I think we're very close to being in that counterproductive area now.

I think it'd be great if someone else actually went to Old Crow Smokehouse and reported back to either confirm or deny the quality of the Q I found there on my one visit.

Kman wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Ok, folks. While we all love a good train wreck, the personal attacks and name-calling need to stop immediately. It's fine to discuss the tangential issues about the place here -- hell, a Moderator included it in the subject line he created -- but please, let's keep it civil.

Thanks,

=R=
for the Moderators

I'm all for keeping it civil - I'm just waiting for a simple response to my simple question (post #21). The poster made remarks about this *specific* restaurant and the need to "strategize" and rather than respond to the query about how/what/why has instead chosen to continue to paint with the broad brush and then, further, attack LTHforum posters. Am I asking too much?

With apologies to Robert Towne,

Forget it Kman, it's Wrigleyville....

chitrader wrote:
With apologies to Robert Towne,

Forget it Kman, it's Wrigleyville....

LOL, perfect!

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

chitrader wrote:
With apologies to Robert Towne,

Forget it Kman, it's Wrigleyville....

LOL, perfect!

=R=

OK, sorry I'm not cool enough to get it. Cool folks win. I bow down to the LTH "It's douchey if we say it's douchey and don't fucking challenge us" forces. You win sirs/madams. I now realize that asking people that post about things to actually explain about the things they post is verboten, or at the very least ill advised. It's clearly less about dialogue and more about supporting somebody pimping their writing. I'm still going next week. I hope to get there early enough to potentially engage Mr. Scruggs if he has any insight into why someone like mgmcewen would write that his restaurant is a potential hotbed of racism, sexism, and homophobia and that would-be patrons need to strategize their visits there. Oh yeah, and there's food, too. I won't bother posting back in this thread about that, though, as it's pretty obvious nobody gives a shit about the actual food and is more interested in throwing stones at the place based upon its location. It's a fairly predictable outcome, I guess, when one starts a thread with such a title (and I'm sure the owners are just thrilled about the Google search results that are popping up).

I'm still going next week.

Great. Please take some good pictures and post them so the rest of us can actually get something out of this thread. Neither side is looking pretty or productive right now. Northside needs BBQ beyond Smoque, because I've yet to meet the place worth driving past even an I-57 BBQ from the south.

=B=
For the Rest Of Us.

mtgl wrote:

I'm still going next week.

Great. Please take some good pictures and post them so the rest of us can actually get something out of this thread. Neither side is looking pretty or productive right now. Northside needs BBQ beyond Smoque, because I've yet to meet the place worth driving past even an I-57 BBQ from the south.

=B=
For the Rest Of Us.

Agreed. I'd like to see some impressions of the food at this place other than my own.

Kman wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:

chitrader wrote:
With apologies to Robert Towne,

Forget it Kman, it's Wrigleyville....

LOL, perfect!

=R=

OK, sorry I'm not cool enough to get it. Cool folks win. I bow down to the LTH "It's douchey if we say it's douchey and don't fucking challenge us" forces. You win sirs/madams. I now realize that asking people that post about things to actually explain about the things they post is verboten, or at the very least ill advised. It's clearly less about dialogue and more about supporting somebody pimping their writing. I'm still going next week. I hope to get there early enough to potentially engage Mr. Scruggs if he has any insight into why someone like mgmcewen would write that his restaurant is a potential hotbed of racism, sexism, and homophobia and that would-be patrons need to strategize their visits there. Oh yeah, and there's food, too. I won't bother posting back in this thread about that, though, as it's pretty obvious nobody gives a shit about the actual food and is more interested in throwing stones at the place based upon its location. It's a fairly predictable outcome, I guess, when one starts a thread with such a title (and I'm sure the owners are just thrilled about the Google search results that are popping up).

I'm sorry if it was my appreciation of chitrader's reference to Chinatown that lit your fuse. I thought the comic relief was nicely timed and deftly applied. And, I thought he was ribbing me.

Personally, I thought the original piece (at Chicagoist) that Hammond referenced when he started this thread was amusing in a snarky sort of way. As for the circular debate and dubious claims that have followed it here, they're tedious at best and so entirely predictable. This has just turned into another meaningless internet argument with shouting, displaced anger and dubious claims for which this is not an appropriate or adequate space to reach a resolution. That's why I suggested letting it go. Even if someone had all the answers -- which they clearly do not -- we're basically here to discuss food. The rest is mostly noise, which I find fairly easy to ignore. I've been posting on the internet for nearly 15 years and I think I know a vortex (meaning debates like this one) when I see one. I hoped the same was true for everyone else. I'm not sure why my desire to steer us clear of that makes me "cool" rather than pragmatic.

=R=

Barn & Co is located in a "douche vortex", right? What can we assume about their typical clientele in regards to this thread?

Kman - For what it's worth I too am not a fan of the article but I'll forgo further comment in the interest of putting this to bed.

But that being said I don't think either chitrader or ronnie_suburban were taking a shot at you. The way I read it they were both making light of the train wreck this thread has become.

Moved and preserved. Food can be discussed in a new thread when the data exists.

Santander
for the moderators

Santander wrote:Moved and preserved. Food can be discussed in a new thread when the data exists.

Santander
for the moderators

Did not the thread originator post about the food (with pictures, no less)?

OK, Wrigleyville is not everyone's favorite neighborhood. I went here to watch college basketball on a weeknight and found the patrons to be perfectly normal, non-rapists, some of whom might not have even gone to Big Ten schools. So, on to the food .... I am sad to report that the food is overpriced and, on the night I went, decidedly mediocre. The menu is promising, but it fails to deliver. Fried okra app consistent of 6 tiny, greasy bites that could have been fried anything for $6. Burnt ends were sad, dry, salty, depressingly bad. It's still hard for me to talk about the dry, fatty, weirdly seasoned lamb skewers for $15. Not my best ordering choice.

zoid wrote:Kman - For what it's worth I too am not a fan of the article but I'll forgo further comment in the interest of putting this to bed.

But that being said I don't think either chitrader or ronnie_suburban were taking a shot at you. The way I read it they were both making light of the train wreck this thread has become.

Yep, sorry if there was any confusion Kman, what I meant was it was pretty clear you weren't ever going to get the answer you were looking for from the writer.

I'm having a tough time reconciling this:

Kman wrote:Did not the thread originator post about the food (with pictures, no less)?

With this:

Kman wrote:I won't bother posting back in this thread about that, though, as it's pretty obvious nobody gives a shit about the actual food and is more interested in throwing stones at the place based upon its location. It's a fairly predictable outcome, I guess, when one starts a thread with such a title (and I'm sure the owners are just thrilled about the Google search results that are popping up).

Any way, in regard to the owners being thrilled, I did Google, and I found that the owner of Old Crow Smokehouse (who also owns a bunch of other places, including John Barleycorn) actually reposted a link to my original post on HIS website: https://www.linkedin.com/company/samco-enterprises -- so I'm guessing ownership is not too upset about either my post or Melissa's.

And as a result of the Google search, I found many, many other websites talking about Melissa's postulated Douche Vortex because, you know, it's kind of funny. As far as I can tell, the only folks getting totally torqued out about the concept is us. And that, my friends, may also be a "predictable outcome."

Regardless of the neighborhood in which it's situated, this review by someone who does know bbq, from way back in February, had pretty much taken Old Crow off my radar. The review was mixed but there certainly wasn't enough positive there to inspire a visit. Spinonejay's comments above have pretty much reinforced that feeling for me.

=R=

I, of course, have great respect for Mr. Sula, whose review I did not read prior to going, and I notice that he, too, cannot resist referencing the neighborhood:

"One of the more ambitious of these recent projects is Old Crow Smokehouse in Wrigleyville, 10,500 square feet of kountry-roadhouse kitsch, featuring 20 TVs, a soundtrack of the worst commercial country music Nashville is capable of producing, and a posse of indolent waitresses in short skirts and cowboy boots serving drinks in plastic glasses—because, presumably, the patrons can't be trusted not to smash them over each other's heads on game day. Wrigleyville gets what it deserves."

It's in a sports zone, so the TVs are predictable (here...and everywhere actually); I heard pretty good live music, not a sound track; I figured the server's outfits would take a hit, and the patrons are, for better or worse, characterized as drunken douches (isn't that just what you'd expect from a place in Wrigleyville? sad smile). His comments on the food are likely fair, but I didn't have (or write about) what he had, with the exception of the chicken and ribs, the latter of I liked a lot and he seemed to think were fine, or "the best" of what he had:

"The figurehead here is Tony Scruggs, a handlebar-'stached barbecue-competition-circuit vet who made a respectable run on MasterChef season two, making it up to number 16 before packing his knives. Scruggs is a likable fellow who works the room, pressing the flesh, and he's churning out the usual suspects on a large Southern Pride offset smoker that turns out—like a lot of places where it's used—smoked meat that varies in consistency depending on your order. Both the brisket and the pulled pork have a braised quality that doesn't carry much smoked flavor, and though the pork remains winningly fatty and juicy, the brisket just can't take that treatment and comes out dry as a bone. The chicken is also dry, but smoky, and a beef-and-pork-blend sausage hits all the right notes: juicy, snappy, and saturated with wood smoke. Baby back ribs seem to weather this treatment best, their fat absorbing the smoke while they maintain a certain amount of chewability. All of these are served on wax paper screened with fake newsprint."

But I'm not looking to stack my BBQ cred against Mr. Sula's, or my journalism against his -- heck, C2, he even mentioned MasterChef! -- and I didn't have any of what sounds like the misbegotten Asian-influenced stuff, the lamb of which Spinonejay also disliked. Still, I think it's fair for one to go and decide for oneself..."regardless of the neighborhood."

David Hammond wrote:Old Crow Smokehouse: Deliciousness in the Douche Vortex

Few days ago, Chicagoist published its very helpful guide to Douche Vortices around the city [http://chicagoist.com/2014/05/01/chicagos_douche_vortexes.php], explaining:

Chicago has several major douche vortices. It’s important to map them out .

It does seem perhaps a trifle odd that douches are (per the map) not to be found south of the River.

Of course everybody knows that evil spirits are unable to cross running water, but it's news to me at least that the same apparently goes for douches.

Roger Ramjet wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Old Crow Smokehouse: Deliciousness in the Douche Vortex

Few days ago, Chicagoist published its very helpful guide to Douche Vortices around the city [http://chicagoist.com/2014/05/01/chicagos_douche_vortexes.php], explaining:

Chicago has several major douche vortices. It’s important to map them out .

It does seem perhaps a trifle odd that douches are (per the map) not to be found south of the River.

Of course everybody knows that evil spirits are unable to cross running water, but it's news to me at least that the same apparently goes for douches.

I'm becoming kind of a "scholar" of all the discourse surrounding Melissa's article (I did, as mentioned above, Google around and find a lot of interesting stuff -- at least interesting to me). One complaint that came up on several sites was that the Southside was, once again, ignored. "Hey, we got douches down here, too, you know. A little attention, please..."

A complaint, given this thread, that I found more than a little humorous.

Darn right! And douches don't all wear Cubs hats, either!



Plenty of 'em wear Twins hats.

Roger Ramjet wrote:Darn right! And douches don't all wear Cubs hats, either!

Indeed, a vicious characterization.

David Hammond wrote:But I'm not looking to stack my BBQ cred against Mr. Sula's, or my journalism against his -- heck, C2, he even mentioned MasterChef! -- and I didn't have any of what sounds like the misbegotten Asian-influenced stuff, the lamb of which Spinonejay also disliked. Still, I think it's fair for one to go and decide for oneself..."regardless of the neighborhood."

No, understood. It was this line in your opening post . . .

David Hammond wrote:Though I’m not much of a BBQ aficionado

. . . that led me to believe that you weren't quite as sure about your own regard for this place as you otherwise might have been. I've eaten quite a bit of bbq in town and my opinion of it usually lines up with Sula's.

=R=

We're on the same page, Ron.

I grew up in Wrigleyville, and watched it change for the worse as the neighborhood "developed." My parents still live there; I do not. I can say without qualification that the influx of broader midwest college grads has ruined the neighborhood. They are, for the most part (but not all) absolutely douches (that's a mild term to describe them and their "culture") and so are many that visit the neighborhood to drink and stare at TV screens. I'm not sure why this offends people. If you didn't grow up in the neighborhood, then I'm not going to give your "opinions", which are surely not based in fact, more than a sideways glance. If you want me to recount specific instances of repeated douchebagerry (racism, violence, lawn pissing and puking), I'd be happy to provide. F those people.

Sweet lord, if you want to skewer all the bros in wrigleyville who will never be able to read and/or comprehend your lofty insults surely you can do it on craigslist/reddit/4chan/etc. You're making it hard to follow whether or not the bbq is worth checking out or not.

Suiname wrote:You're making it hard to follow whether or not the bbq is worth checking out or not.

I've been there. I say it is worth checking out.

Habibi wrote:I grew up in Wrigleyville, and watched it change for the worse as the neighborhood "developed." My parents still live there; I do not. I can say without qualification that the influx of broader midwest college grads has ruined the neighborhood. They are, for the most part (but not all) absolutely douches (that's a mild term to describe them and their "culture") and so are many that visit the neighborhood to drink and stare at TV screens. I'm not sure why this offends people. If you didn't grow up in the neighborhood, then I'm not going to give your "opinions", which are surely not based in fact, more than a sideways glance. If you want me to recount specific instances of repeated douchebagerry (racism, violence, lawn pissing and puking), I'd be happy to provide. F those people.

Let's be fair, many of those are Cardinals fans.

JeffB wrote:

Habibi wrote:I grew up in Wrigleyville, and watched it change for the worse as the neighborhood "developed." My parents still live there; I do not. I can say without qualification that the influx of broader midwest college grads has ruined the neighborhood. They are, for the most part (but not all) absolutely douches (that's a mild term to describe them and their "culture") and so are many that visit the neighborhood to drink and stare at TV screens. I'm not sure why this offends people. If you didn't grow up in the neighborhood, then I'm not going to give your "opinions", which are surely not based in fact, more than a sideways glance. If you want me to recount specific instances of repeated douchebagerry (racism, violence, lawn pissing and puking), I'd be happy to provide. F those people.

Let's be fair, many of those are Cardinals fans.

LMAO! So true, so true.

=R=

Let's try a little experiment...
I'm going to edit what Habibi posted and bold my alterations...

I grew up in [lets say, the south side...], and watched it change for the worse as the neighborhood "developed." My parents still live there; I do not. I can say without qualification that the influx of broader [insert blatently offensive racial derogatory term here] has ruined the neighborhood. They are, for the most part (but not all) absolutely [insert blatantly offensive racial derogatory term here] (that's a mild term to describe them and their "culture") and so are many that visit the neighborhood to drink and stare at TV screens. I'm not sure why this offends people. If you didn't grow up in the neighborhood, then I'm not going to give your "opinions", which are surely not based in fact, more than a sideways glance. If you want me to recount specific instances of repeated [insert blatantly offensive racial derogatory term here] (racism, violence, lawn pissing and puking), I'd be happy to provide. F those people.

Are we still OK with that?
I'm not, not at all, I'm actually pretty far from OK with that.

My point isn't that all offence is equal. It's not, not by a long shot.
My proposal: how about we just knock it off all together.