Super GemChicago Exclusive GemDish Gem$$Bill Begale, who's worked here since 1984 aside from a brief detour into the cheese business, bought the shop from Lekan's sons in 2006 and the building itself in 2009 — a real, deliberate continuation rather than a change in direction. "If it's not the best, we don't keep it.
We send it back," Begale has said of the sourcing standard, and the case backs it up: hand-cut USDA Choice and Prime beef, 80-plus house-made sausages and brats, and a frozen section stocked with things most butchers don't carry — venison, elk, wild boar, ostrich, buffalo. (Alligator burgers used to be on the list too; Begale says he can't source them anymore.) A church pew up front handles overflow when the line gets long, which it regularly does around holidays — Easter ham and lamb roast orders specifically sell out if you wait too long to call ahead.
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