Ask a Beverly resident what's new in the neighborhood this month and you'll probably hear about a rib joint before you hear about anything else. That's not an accident. Within about 15 months of opening, a counter-service spot on 99th Street went from local secret to a name on a national best-of list, and the way it's handling that attention says something about how this neighborhood actually works. Everyone assumes success means a business leaves the block that made it. Beverly is proving the opposite this year: the fame is moving to Hyde Park, but the kitchen is staying exactly where it started.
From a 99th Street Storefront to a National Best-Of List
Sanders BBQ Supply Co. opened at 1742 W. 99th St. in June 2024, serving rib tips, Texas-style brisket, beef short ribs, and an oxtail gumbo that critics kept singling out. By September 2025, the restaurant had landed on the New York Times' list of the 50 best restaurants in the country, one of only two Chicago spots to make the cut. Not long after, chef James Sanders and pitmaster Nick Kleutsch also picked up a James Beard Award semifinalist nod, on top of a Best Counter Service win at Chicago's local Banchet Awards, as Block Club Chicago reported.
That's an unusually fast climb for a place that still doesn't take cards. The lines that wrap around the building on weekends aren't a new phenomenon. What changed is the audience watching them.
Sanders and Kleutsch didn't build this alone. The team includes partner Ogbanna Bowden and chef Miguel Lopez, and Sanders is also the founder of Fuze Catering, which was one of eight vendors selected to cater the Obama Presidential Center's Home Court athletics facility. The barbecue got the headlines, but the roots run deeper into the South Side than a single storefront.
"It's like this restaurant is my 10-year-old child and the other place is my newborn," Sanders said of the original Beverly location and its coming sibling.
Why the Expansion Doesn't Mean What You'd Think
Here's where most neighborhood success stories take a predictable turn: the acclaimed spot outgrows its original block, and the attention drifts elsewhere for good. Sanders is expanding to Hyde Park with a second restaurant, Sanders BBQ Prime, which was on track to open this past summer in the former Promontory space at 5311 S. Lake Park Ave., a building the University of Chicago leased to Sanders after the venue's decade-long run as a music hall ended at the close of 2025. The new spot leans into steaks, plated dinners, and a full bar, alongside beef-tallow-smoked popcorn, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
But the part that matters for Beverly isn't the new address. It's what happens to the old one. Rather than shrinking in importance once the spotlight moves to Hyde Park, the Beverly location is becoming the centralized hub for prepping the big proteins, the brisket, beef ribs, and pork, that will headline the Hyde Park menu. Sanders is also growing the Beverly footprint further with an adjacent retail store. In other words, the more famous this operation gets, the more work actually happens on 99th Street, not less.
That's worth sitting with if you live nearby. A national spotlight usually pulls resources away from where they started. Here it's doing the reverse: Beverly becomes the production kitchen behind a restaurant that will carry its name into another neighborhood entirely.
The Same September, a Different Kind of Tradition Turns 13
While one Beverly institution is figuring out how to be in two places at once, another is doing something more familiar: showing up for its 13th year in a row. The Beverly Art Walk returns Saturday, September 26, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., spanning more than 40 businesses and venues across Beverly and Morgan Park, according to The Visualist. It's the cornerstone event of the Beverly Area Arts Alliance, and it's free.
This isn't a festival that gets trucked in and set up in a park. It happens inside the actual storefronts, coffee shops, and studios that make up the neighborhood's commercial spine, which means the event changes shape slightly every year depending on which businesses are open and which ones are new.
This year's edition includes:
- Work from more than 100 artists shown across participating storefronts and studios
- The Uprising Handmade Market, a juried market for local makers
- A Family Fun Park for younger visitors
- Public art installations and live musical performances woven through the walk
If Sanders BBQ is the story of Beverly's name traveling outward, the Art Walk is the story of the neighborhood pulling everyone back in for a single Saturday, no ticket required.
Where to Go Before or After the Walk
Beverly's commercial stretch runs mostly along Western Avenue, and the businesses lining it aren't waiting for a special occasion to be worth a visit. Here's a working list, drawn from what's currently open along the corridor via onwestern.com:
| Spot | What locals go for |
|---|---|
| Horse Thief Hollow (10426 S Western Ave) | House-brewed beer and a full kitchen menu |
| Nicky's of Beverly (10500 S Western Ave) | Chicago-style hot dogs, gyros, and burgers, family-run since 1997 |
| Beverly Bakery and Cafe | Breakfast and early lunch, Tuesday through Sunday, with homemade donuts |
| Top Notch Beefburgers | Old-school burgers and hot dogs |
| Open Outcry Brewing Co. (10934 S Western Ave) | Craft beer with a rotating events calendar |
| Cork & Kerry and O'Rourke's Office | Long-running Irish pubs on the same stretch that hosts the South Side Irish Parade |
Paul Kostopanagiotou, the second-generation owner behind Nicky's of Beverly, has described the restaurant's patio scene as a cross-section of the neighborhood itself, strollers next to little league teams next to first dates, all within a few feet of each other. That's not a marketing line so much as an accurate description of what a Saturday on Western Avenue actually looks like.
What Doesn't Move
Put the two stories side by side and a pattern comes into focus. Sanders BBQ is proof that Beverly can produce something good enough to travel, a restaurant whose name will now show up in Hyde Park, in national food coverage, in James Beard conversations. The Art Walk is proof of the opposite instinct: an event that has spent thirteen years getting bigger by staying exactly where it is, spreading across more storefronts each year instead of relocating to a bigger venue somewhere else.
Neither story is really about real estate. But both explain something a listing sheet never will, which is what it actually feels like to live in a neighborhood where the biggest recent news is a rib joint getting famous without leaving, and a community art walk getting bigger without changing its footprint. That's not a coincidence specific to two businesses. It's closer to a description of how Beverly tends to grow.
If you're already living here, keep an eye on 99th Street and mark September 26 on the calendar. If you're the kind of person who reads a post like this because you're picturing yourself on one of these porches someday, that's a different conversation, and one Tatiana Hernandez would be glad to have with you. Let's connect.
