Meat. Booze. Two best things ever. Right?
Rhetorical question. Of course they are.
But now let me ask you something for real: What if you combined mixology and the culinary arts at the molecular level? Would the resultant new thing be even more betterer than either best thing on its own?
It most certainly would. I know this because it already has a name.
“Butcher and Bartender,” said Chris Jack, proprietor. “What else could my wife Stephanie and I name our food truck, where we marry the finest cuts of meat with the highest-quality spirits?
“As a long-time food and beverage professional, with a career that has influenced over one dozen restaurants in five states including California and Hawaii, I’ve always been fascinated by the delicate interplay between the edible and the imbibable. I wanted to create dishes that really push the fusion of both major culinary elements – to go beyond Marsala sauce and rum cake, and attain a perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.”
As a native Chicagoan, Chris grew up where he could be fined or imprisoned for making lackluster sausages. It only made sense to start there.
“I started naming my creations after the cocktails and spirits that influenced them,” said Chris. “My pork and fennel sausage is named ‘Negroni’ because it’s infused with the cocktail’s same gin, Campari and sweet vermouth. The liquors enhance the pork’s flavor profile instead of overpowering it, and give off a faint aromatic twang like you’ve never sensed before.”
Chris went on to perfect “Michelada” (traditional Midwest brat fortified with beer and Clamato), and then “Cocotini” (Lao-style pork sausage made with lime and lemongrass, and anointed with vanilla vodka and coconut rum). But Chris isn’t merely a Chicagoan. As an American, there was yet another culinary call he had to answer.
Butcher and Bartender’s Manhattan butter burger isn’t just a burger. It is a transformative experience: a fresh six-ounce ground beef patty infused with bourbon, vermouth and bitters, nestled inside a lightly toasted bun with freshly cut toppings and housemade sauces, complete with a side of piping hot beef tallow fries. This is why God invented cows.
The Jack family’s ultimate goal is to turn Butcher and Bartender into brick and mortar. “We’ll serve beer, cocktails, and cocktail-infused foods, as well as sell our meats to take home,” Chris envisaged. “I’m especially looking forward to getting behind the bar again, and offering an elite beverage and mixology program to compliment our food. As things stand now we don’t technically serve alcohol. All of it evaporates out of the food while it’s cooking, and you can probably imagine the Department of Public Safety’s position on the concept of ‘food truck liquor licenses.’”
For now, Chris is enjoying the tight confines and limitless boundaries of his new venture. “Our food truck has brought my wife Stephanie and I closer together than ever before – and we were already a match made in heaven,” added Chris, wisely. “She’s also a lifetime hospitality professional, who comes from a foodie family that owns one of the best and longest-running Chinese restaurants in Columbus, Ohio, and who can (and does) talk about food with me constantly. And my two little daughters, Kailani and Mya? They think having a food truck is the coolest thing ever.
“But the best part of owning a food truck? It lets us serve anywhere. If you’ve got a big wedding, birthday celebration, graduation party, family reunion, corporate function, street festival, musical performance, sporting event, or any other gathering where guests will expect to be fed, let us feed them! We can serve right from the truck or sort out any other arrangement you’d prefer. Butcher and Bartender will meet you wherever you are!”
Butcher and Bartender is still booking for 2025, but their schedule is filling up fast. Visit ButcherAndBartender.com to book your private event, or to see where the food truck will be stationed this week.