A few weeks ago, I got a DM on Instagram from a new restaurant. I get about a dozen of those every week, but this one intrigued me.
The sender had trained at the Culinary Institute of America and apprenticed at The Inn at Little Washington, one of the country’s great restaurants. He’d spent five years in France (he fell in love with a girl there) before moving back to Chicago.
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So why did he reach out? He’d opened a place making French-style fried chicken sandwiches.
That’s one way to get my attention.
That man is Bobby Griffin, an American-born Loyola University graduate, and his shop is Bobby’s Fried Chicken.
“Shop” is a loose word. It’s actually a shared kitchen inside The Hatchery, a food startup incubator located at 135 N. Kedzie Ave. in Garfield Park on Chicago’s West Side. Bobby’s Fried Chicken is a one-man show.
Here’s how it works: you order online, then pick up in The Hatchery, or, if you’re close by, get it delivered. Most people eat their sandwiches right there in the lobby.
It opened in July, and like most new businesses, it runs on word of mouth.
In the early days, Griffin might get one order all day. But socia...