SOUTHERN COOKING

You don’t have to forget your waistline when you venture into America’s pre-eminent regional cuisine. Nor do you have to pay supper club prices for food that’s cooked from fresh ingredients and prepared the way you want it. 

This is Southern cooking that’s meant for urban Yankees. From vegan entrees to our own slow smoked BBQ,  we serve breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch.  

Some traditions we’ve kept: like choosing your own sides and a casual hospitality that favors friendliness. Other traditions like the lard, added sugar and processing—we’ve left behind. This is the progressive South we grew up with. Come taste it for yourself.

HISTORY

Wishbone Restaurant opened in late June 1990 on the near west side of Chicago at the corner of Grand and Wood with 28 seats.  The intent was simple: to serve a healthier take on Southern cooking with all fresh ingredients, sophisticated technique, no pretension or country kitsch . . . and diner prices.

Within months we expanded to dinner service and quickly became a popular eatery for all the artists, photographers and businesses that had sprung up along the Carroll industrial corridor and Wicker Park. A year and a half later we opened a second location at 1001 W. Washington Blvd. With 175 seats and central placement between Chicago’s north and south sides, Wishbone became a dining room for the widest array of locals and tourists of every color, class and background found in the Midwest.

At the end of 1999, the staff from the original small Wishbone was moved north to a larger restaurant bordering Roscoe Village and West Lakeview. With many of the same recipes, a few of our original kitchen staff, lamps by brother Greg and more artwork by friends, we continue our mission to bring community together. From families to couples, young, old, entrepreneurs, musicians, workers . . . and even select politicians . . . they come for the surprisingly good food at honest prices.