Their brother James joined them in 1968 and opened the 75th Street location in a former ice cream parlor — the current sign is still a leftover from that previous life — and it's where rib tips were first served, now the dish this place is most famous for. The signature is the "aquarium" smoker itself: a glass-walled pit you can watch the meat slow-cook inside, which became the defining look of South Side Chicago barbecue more broadly. James ran the place until he died in 2015 at 87; his daughter Carmen and her nephews run it now, and the JBL combo on the menu is named for him.
There's no seating — regulars eat standing at the counter or off the hood of their car, sopping up sauce with the slice of white bread that always comes underneath. The James Beard Foundation named it an America's Classic in 2025, decades after Aretha Franklin, Denzel Washington, and Scottie Pippen were already reportedly regulars.
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