Meat distributors in Chicago

....and? Sysco and US Foods are logistics services, they can supply whatever you want which includes extremely high quality ingredients.

A day in the life of these delivery drivers in just incredible. Hardest job I can think of off the top of my head. They face clients. Do manual lifting, navigate schedules, start at 4a and go til 8p daily. They have to repair freezer units and verify the orders are packed correctly all while navigating city traffic in a long haul. These guys/gals should be making bank.

Unless it’s a from scratch kitchen or fine dining 75-90 percent of product at every restaurant is from either Sysco , US Foods or a similar food distributor. Some may use a local bakery for bread and most use produce express for diary and produce. Others may use separate meat distros depending such as Del Monte or Allen Bros. Chefs warehouse is another. It’s all coming from the same 5 places bar a unique specialty item.

As others have said, it’s not as much about the supplier as it is about the restaurant. I work in the distribution side, though not (currently) with one of the big distributors. Everyone, from Michelin star places down to the greasiest hole in the wall Diner, uses a broad line distributor for at least some of their products. So filtering out Sysco or US Foods will not do anything. All of the big suppliers are pushing the same things, so it’s not hard to spot a restaurant that’s using those Heat n serve type products - do they serve trendy stuff like birria, poke, pretzel bites, queso, some sort of elotes, and somehow also burnt ends (but no other BBQ)? You’re looking at a place that is essentially ripping open bags and dropping stuff in the fryer.

There's a difference between buying ingredients from a large food distributor, and buying premade food from them though. I'd also posit there's a difference in quality of products between Sysco, US Foods, and PFG, though within each company they have different quality levels as well. Criticizing restaurants for using large food distributors is a wild trend, imo, similar to criticizing an individual for shopping at Safeway. Even from scratch kitchens use large food distributors. I worked in a restaurant that we made everything single thing from scratch except dry pasta (we did make some fresh) and we used PFG (this is a distributor larger on the East Coast, but they are in Sacramento as well) for everything from veal bones to flour. Yes, produce, seafood, and some specialty items often come from other distributors, but I still don't get the criticism. Y'all wanna pay *even more* for food at restaurants or something?!

A fine dining or from scratch kitchen is still getting a Sysco order. Know why? Cause Sysco sells EVERYTHING..... including the stuff you need to cook from scratch!

Paulina Meat Market. Butcher and Larder. Gepperth's Meat Market. Just to name a few. There are a lot of great butchers in the city.

On the Northwest Side, [Joseph's Finest Meats](https://imgur.com/xo8EY6p) on [Addison near Oak Park Ave](https://imgur.com/QtKRjx0)..... ...Stocking up or throwing a party? Bulk at wholesale to the public at [Ellengee Market](https://ellengeemarket.com/) on Northwest Hwy at Milwaukee.

[Peoria Packing Butcher Shop](http://www.peoriapacking.com) in the West Loop if you’re interested in picking the meats yourself.

Joseph's Finest Meats on the NW side on Addison is great. Great expertise and customer service, but they also almost exclusively sell USDA Prime beef, so don’t expect it to be super cheap. In general I think a good butcher is going to come with a premium, but you’re paying to know the quality of your meat will be top notch. I do agree the prices at Paulina across the board have gotten a little insane, but they’re also very popular and in an expensive neighborhood.

Used to work at Gene’s. I wouldn’t touch their meat with a 10 foot pole. Paulina meat market is where butchers go when they want meat for themselves though, it’s legit.

Fresh Market Place on western has a great butcher that sources from Slagal and other local high quality farms.

Came here to suggest Paulina Meat Market. OP - check out their website. If there is something that is a bit more "specialty", give the guys a call to see if they will carry it. Great people who work behind the counter and SUPER knowledgeable about what they carry.

SRF seems a little overpriced relative to what you're getting. We use Allen Brothers of Chicago, a restaurant purveyor that comes in a bit cheaper with a rock solid scheduling and shipping experience. They supply most of the prime steakhouses here in Dallas.

Randolph is the widest street in Chicago because it was where Randolph Market and Hay Market were located. The wholesale source for most all of Chicago’s food at the time. Here are some historic pics that will show you how the wide street was configured during that time: https://www.facebook.com/groups/truewestloop/permalink/1983205208593338/ The planters separating the center of the street which is controlled by the State from the service lanes controlled by the City, were a recent addition to spruce things up during the last Democratic Convention in Chicago.

It was widened in 1908 for market purposes. The origins are the two-block stretch known as the Haymarket, most of which is now occupied by the Kennedy Expwy. The market originated in 1860 as a general meat and produce market, then specialized in hay, then shifted back to solely a farmers market around 1875. Wholesale houses began to settle in the area, and the growth of motor trucks gave new impetus for a wider roadway to serve the meat and produce market that had settled in that area, and in 1903 the city council imposed a special assessment to widen the roadway. Legal challenges delayed the work until 1908.

Mostly produce wholesalers on Randolph. I remember going there with my dad even into the 1970s. Even though they were wholesalers they also sold to individuals.

Guy who never hung out in “Fulton Market” when it was a meat packing district, laments it now has things that attracts people

I’m not going to ignore the concerns and issues facing restaurants owners, but something in this equation that gets glossed over and was mentioned very briefly was the other costs in restaurant ownership. We’re largely placing blame on a roughly $1 an hour increase in labor for servers and largely ignoring the price gouging these restaurants are facing from their vendors and suppliers. There isn’t a large scale push on the landlords that are increasing their rents. Those costs are going up and often at a much higher rate than the sub minimum wage increase. It’s a shame to see the restaurant industry attacking the wage increases instead of the other factors. It makes little sense to me to have this dumb policy of business owners having to make whole the hourly pay for their servers and calculate what they got for the minimum wage. It should just be one minimum wage for everyone regardless of their occupation.

I didn't read the article but if rent and vendor costs weren't mentioned in the article then it wasn't worth reading. Almost every restaurant that I enjoy that has closed has mentioned massive rent increases to be the main reason it was no longer sustainable. 

Your labor is way too low. That will run at least 20% and you’ll probably need to be working there too. Also in the current environment your food cost is too low, there is a lot of supply chain disruption which causes price increases. It’s going to end up closer to 30% The food delivery services just charge too much to really make this model work, they will just eat all the profits. Some restaurants do ok with them as a percentage of sales, but they are barely profiting on those sales. It can be a form of marketing as it gets your name out and your food out.

Originally, their brats came from rabers. After rabers burned down they were getting them from usingers out of Milwaukee. The Knackwurst was from a supplier out of Chicago, but I can’t recall who exactly at the moment. And the Thuringers came from our food distributior (first Waugh, then Sysco).