Ne Pork Ultra: A First Whiff Of Smoke Daddy
A 1994 conversation with the founder of Chicago classics Smoke Daddy and California Clipper
It was the fifth or sixth time I dropped by Smoke Daddy's for the pulled pork sandwich that I realized somebody back there was getting the hang of the thing. The essence of pig was beginning to come through. I cast the bun aside and scooped up the moist, peppery meat clutching that smoke flavor, drizzled with an at-first modest but piquant sauce.
It takes effort and attention to manufacture true barbecue savor. The barbecue joints of high character are as much one-man culinary crusades as business enterprises. They're the places you discover because their neon is the brightest light in a crashing thunderstorm, like Payne's in Memphis, a pit installed in a drafty old filling station, with several ounces of still-simmering meat and sauce and slaw and relish bursting from its wrapper, ready to be gobbled or dropped all over.
Max Brumbach, "chef and dishwasher" of Smoke Daddy Rhythm And Bar-B-Que, grew up in Franklin Park, and says he's been barbecuing for thirty of his forty-three years, "at the grill, so to speak."
He bought the unassuming Division Street storefront, nestled in Chicago's neo-East Village, in 1989. Open since September, Smoke Daddy has a slim, single-page menu, but the restaurant owes its existence to one man’s abiding desire to offer loving tribute to the occupant of "the largest room in the mansion of barbecue": the pulled pork sandwich.
"Barbecue in Chicago and the Midwest, it's weird, it's not necessarily real barbecue," Brumbach says. "When most people think of barbecue, they think of Carson's, which is good food, but it's kind of roasted, it's broiled baby back ribs Greek-style, dipped in sauce.It's very good, but it isn't barbecued. We do spare ribs here. That, to me, from the pig, spare ribs, good ones, that's really good barbecue. That, to me, is ribs. But I'm an aficionado of the pork shoulder sandwich. I think the sandwich at Payne's [Bar-B-Q in Memphis] is about as good as barbecue gets, ever, that's the ideal we strive for here."
Brumbach is conversant with the traditions, from the Carolinas to Texas, Memphis to Arkansas. We share the Memphis Moment, recollecting those sandwiches so full that if you take it in its wrapper to your car, you can't help but drop it all over. We spare a longer moment over memories of Payne's. "Wasn't that the greatest barbecue sandwich you ever had?" he asks. "That, to me, is what I'm aiming for here."
Simply, the Smoke Daddy, open on Division Street America since September on the block with Leo's Lunchroom and the fallen shadow of Czar Bar, is a tribute to the pig, with slaw and relish and sauce accompanying the aromatic smoked meat. He hasn't gone after coverage or reviews, he's waiting to unveil his fries once they're perfected.
Ribs and rib tips have done wonders for the place, though, considering Brumbach had planned to serve only barbecue sandwiches. That is the pinnacle, the ne pork ultra, "the most important room in the house of barbecue, which has so many rooms."
"BUT I LOVE BARBECUE SANDWICHES."
"I like barbecue sandwiches so much, my initial concept was to only have barbecue sandwiches and not have ribs," he says, "But I'm glad I do have ribs and rib tips, because that's our biggest ticket item, and down at the bottom line, that's helped us.
"But I love barbecue sandwiches! Maybe it stems from that second grade, having what passed for barbecue thrust in my face and me finding it deliriously wonderful, but...
"There are so many rooms in the houe of barbecue, you can spend months if not years in that house, in that mansion. It's one of my favorite pastimes, going some place like Kansas City or Hot Springs, and eating barbecue.
"I consider myself somewhere between an aficiando and a fanatic. It's a part of America, it's like our music, we do it better than anybody anywhere else in the world."
Brumbach says that playing in blues bands provided the sweet opportunity to discover the small, very small joints that you will only find "when you're playing places like Black Moose Lodges around the South and Southwest."
He's also worked as a contractor. His refinements of the architecture of his sandwiches are paralleled by the refinements of the room. Not a Lettuce Entertainment theme park, it's a modest-sized roadhouse-cum-lounge, with Polynesian and musical motifs such as sheet music on the walls and cowled hanging lamps and four lamps from two Northside El stops he saw hanging off a scrapper's truck. Brumbach chased the man down, cutting him off at the pass to offer $10 each for them. When he talks about the "architecture" of the barbecue sandwich, he's not mixing his metaphors, but combining enthusiasms.
Brumbach admits that he hasn't sought publicity yet, he's been perfecting the pig and has plans for a chili, a recipe from a friend married several times over who learned a little more from each wife, and more refinement of the triple-cooked French fries made with aged potatoes and cooked in three types of oil.
"I TRIED JUST A CORNER OF A RIB, AND I SAID, I THINK THIS IS THE ONE."
The altar of this temple to barbecue is The Little Red Smokehouse, a seven-foot, bright red barbecue pit made in Mesquite, Texas, costing thousands of dollars and weighing nearly a ton, at 1,900 pounds. His green-and-white checkerboard floor bears faint scuffs and gentle grooves in the tile. "It left furrows! You can see them in my brand new floor, kind of like in 'The Time Machine' where the guy pushes the sled through the snow?
"We had this lunch counter built," he says, "and I neglected to quite measure correctly so we had to cut a hole to get it in the kitchen. The literature from the company said it was thirty-four-and-a-half inches wide, because with the door off, I have three-quarters of an inch to spare. it turns out it was an inch wider. The specifications lied! The movers, I'm really glad I hired them, they are the official Steinway mover for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the City of Chicago, so they're really good at getting things into tight places. It took them forty-five minutes to get it through the doorway.
"I read about this Cadillac of smokers and then I went down there twelve years after the article appeared, this place in K. C. had it for at least twelve years and I saw the thing, and it was still running. I saw the ribs going in, then I smelled and tasted them coming out, amazing. Really good barbecue, you don't need sauce, it stands on its own.
"I tried just a corner of a rib, and I said, I think this is the one. Before I bought the pit, I went to The Texan in Algonquin and Zinfandel who both have Little Red Smokehouses. I bought some of Zinfandel's Amish turkey and pork shoulder to go and I put some of my sauce on it on a sandwich, and I said, yep, that's the one."
"AN UNENDING WORK-IN-PROGRESS"
There are local barbecue joints that Brumbach likes—he mentions them quietly—but for the true barbecue experience in the Midwest, he would have to go as far as Milwaukee's near-downtown SpeedQueen.
Brumbach sees barbecue as "an unending work-in-progress," but one recent afternoon he was preparing rib tips, he had some and "I realized, 'Hey, I'm not jiving myself, I am making good barbecue!'
"Barbecue is like good wine. Everyone has their own taste, taste is very personal, but with barbecue, there are a lot of people, it's regional, where'd you come from, where'd you eat? All you can present as chef/dishwasher is what you, yourself like. I can do pork shoulder as I like it, with my sauce, with my coleslaw.
"We've taken license. It's not pure, pure traditionalist, but I like to think that the hybrid is only to the betterment of the sandwich, and besides, it won't fall apart in someone's lap.
"We're going over to a seven-grain bun that's denser for the turkey and chicken, then a denser white bun for the pork shoulder. Plus, brisket on rye bread–a tribute to Kosher delis."
"BARBECUE HAS ALWAYS BEEN KIND OF A SACRED THING."
He'd always resisted importuning from friends to bring him into the way of bars and restaurants, to convert his enthusiasms to running a joint of his own. He always said no. He made sauce and gave sauce as gifts for years. It seemed like enough. But he was fated to create his "temple to barbecue."
"I never really wanted to have a restaurant-restaurant and I've always turned down opportunities to get into the bar business. A guy I know was looking for a backer for a blues bar fifteen years ago, and I said, are you kidding? Forget it. Before the Lizard Lounge opened, it was for sale for like $18,000. But it's never crossed my mind.
"I dabbled with the idea of opening an architectural ornamentation shop, a cool shop, but why another labor-intensive passion? Not that barbecue is a place to get rich, especially in Chicago. But I believe if you make good barbecue, people will come. Barbecue has always been kind of a sacred thing.
"Just the process of making the sauce, it's always a little different. And I like it that way. It's rewarding in a way, making your own sauce, but I'd rather be working the barbecue bit and overseeing thing. It's labor-intensive, making it nearly from scratch, even though we start with ketchup."
His chili's been long in the learning, too. "I learned my chili from a guy who I used to play with, a rockabilly musician named Matt Lucas who had a hit with a tune called 'I'm Movin' On' (1963), a Hank Snow tune. I played with him for about three years and he was married like seven or eight times, and he learned a lot from each wife about cooking. And his chili is a mother, it's a motherfucker. I told him, Matt, you could be the Colonel Sanders of chili if you wanted to. Chili is another great thing, but barbecue rises above."
"PLACES THAT WERE NAMELESS ON LAKE STREET"
"I used to go to the South Side and the West Side, and I'm also a musician, so I used to play in blues bands, still do a little. While in those areas I came to appreciate really good barbecue. Becoming a musician, I found myself frequenting the neighborhood where Leon's used to be, some of the old places, Rib Supreme, these places long gone, places that were nameless on Lake Street.
"Sometimes I play with Howling Wolf's guitar player, Hubert Sumlin, and he had a song called ‘Smokestack Lightning.’ I was thinking of calling it that, then I thought I"d combine some words. When I was younger, I subscribed to Hot Rod magazine, and I used to like Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth. So I figured tying Hot Rods and Howling Wolf together would be kind of like what this place is culturally!”
"MY TREE SURGEON, WHO I'VE BEEN USING FOR YEARS, AN EX-CARNY BARKER, HAS A HUGE SUPPLY OF HICKORY AND RED OAK."
The pit duplicates the old style he was looking for, he says, and gives the same flavor as a brick barbecue pit. "The burning hickory beats as it sweeps as it cleans. It has a convection feature as well as a fan that recirculates the smoke. The traditional gravity, but it also whooshes it through there with a big fan. It's not a rotisserie! The food gets the proper amount of smoke. There's a slab of stone installed in the door. Man, it was $15,000 by the time it got here.
"I'm using hickory and some maple, been looking for a source for black oak. Actually, my tree surgeon, who I've been using for years, an ex-carny barker, he has a huge supply of hickory and red oak which he claims is about the same as black. I have to get a truck and get over there."
"I USED TO PLAY WITH OTIS CLAY"
"I used to play with Otis Clay about twenty years ago, and we backed up Ann Peebles one time. We toured the South, Georgia, Albama, North Carolina, Louisiana what they called the chitlin cirlce, and while I was playing music, got to sample the barbecue, too," he says. "Music took precedence then, but barbecue was like, it's kind of like one goes through phases. I became obsessed with rhythm and blues, which I love"—the full title of "Rhythm & Bar-b-Que" festoons Smoke Daddy's menus and flyers—"And I played with Otis Clay, the Artistics, the Impressions. They offered me a tour to go to Europe, and I was making too much money as a contractor, so I turned them down. I wish now, in hindsight, I had gone, but at any rate, my brother still plays a lot. Between us, we played most of the black blues and soul clubs around town. But going on the road with Otis Clay, we played like real country joints, like Black Moose lodges in the middle of the woods. You really got a sample of country living.
"But I didn't start thinking seriously about a barbecue restaurant until we did the first Royko Ribfest. We thought they were killer, but any contest is as good as its judges."
How about Robinson's? Charlie Robinson won that first Royko Ribfest. "I ate there once. I go to a place and I eat there and If it's good, I go back. There's N.N., Memphis Smokehouse, I ate there once. I ate at Dixie Que once, I ate at Bub City once.
"It's just roasted meat, they don't barbecue the meat! That's the thing in Chicago, when I was a kid, we had in second grade a “Barbecue Sandwich Day.” And you know what the barbecue was? It was Sloppy Joes! That's what they called barbecue. It was delicious, and I remember how tasty it was, but it wasn't barbecue.
"I would say that over half of the people don't know what barbecue is because they've never had it! In the South, both Blacks and whites eat barbecue, but the finer points of barbecue seem to be better appreciated in the Black community. Maybe the migration from the South, and the fact that there's more people who have a closer link to the traditions."
"BARBECUE SAUCE IS ALMOST LIKE RED WINE"
"Barbecue sauce is almost like red wine, there are infinite variations on a theme,” Brumbach muses. “There are great white wines, and there are coffee-based and vinegar-based barbecue sauces, but to me, the measure of a sauce is how good is the red sauce.
"Before I ever knew there was a book called 'A River Runs Through It,' I kind of considered barbecue as having a mystical kind of connotation, thinking about the spiritual aspect of barbecue. It's a part of Americana, the kind of American heritage that has a sacredness to it. The comparison between red wine and barbecue sauce is very apt. There's a great feeling of satisfaction of making this kind of wonderful concoction that through wood smoke does this kind of magical process that brings pig meat to this kind of higher form of expression."
Previously unpublished. A brief piece appeared in Newcity in 1994. Photos via Smoke Daddy website, January 2024.
RESOURCES:
Dave Hoekstra in 2015: "Brumbach is a fine musician, keyboardist with soul legend Otis Clay (1973-78) and a cultural preservationist. In 1993 he opened Smoke Daddy, 1804 West Division, when Wicker Park was a no-man’s-land. He outfitted that music room-restaurant with booths and bar stools he bought at an auction from Chic Rick’s social club on South Michigan. Brumbach saw jazz organist 'Brother' Jack McDuff three times for no cover during the late 1970s at at Chic Rick’s. In 1998 Brumbach restored and opened the California Clipper in Humboldt Park."
Dennis Ray Wheaton anointed Smoke Daddy the key player on Division Street in the New York Times in 2002, among the "Hip, Friendly Places On Chicago's New Dining Strip": "The funky deep storefront is decked out with retro linoleum flooring and old photos of rhythm and blues legends. There are bar stools at a long counter and wood booths on the opposite wall. It attracts a diverse crowd, which one evening included a mink-coated matron enjoying a big martini before her slab of ribs, as well as artsy college kids dining on pulled pork sandwiches and Leinenkugel's beer... The owner, Max Brumbach, is a serious advocate of lazy hardwood smoking to create authentic barbecue... Based on the thirty-seven barbecue joints I tried, Smoke Daddy's ribs are the best north of the Loop."
From the preamble to 2000 lawsuit to forestall "Bone Daddy" from the owners of Twisted Spoke (which eventually closed in 2004): "Since opening its doors at 1804 West Division Street in Chicago, Illinois, in August of 1994, Smoke Daddy has served up hefty portions of its Texarkana barbecue to all comers. Business developed slowly, but Smoke Daddy has now reached a level of critical acclaim and some notoriety, having received very favorable reviews in the major Chicago newspapers and restaurant guides, as well as some international and in-flight magazines. Smoke Daddy is approximately 1,500 square feet and seats forty-two customers. Mark Brumbach, the owner, manager and sole shareholder of Smoke Daddy, estimates that his customers number 30,000 annually and include people from the immediate and Chicagoland area, as well as from other states and countries, and have included some celebrities. Although Smoke Daddy originally advertised, it is now well-known enough so that it no longer engages in paid advertising, with the exception of free matches and postcards imprinted with the Smoke Daddy logo. Mr. Brumbach is a former professional musician, and Smoke Daddy has a small stage where bands (blues, jazz and rockabilly) play nightly after 10pm. Smoke Daddy serves food until 1am."
Eater Chicago wrote of the 2023 ownership of today's two Smoke Daddy locations here. The website of the current Smoke Daddy Division Street location is here.