“Talk to me, ma’am!” bellows William “Billy” Lemons, snapping open a crisp, brown paper bag from behind the counter.
“One large tips — heavy mild sauce …,” the customer says.
“Keep going, baby!” Lemons urges.
She finishes her order and then it’s on to the next customer from a lunchtime line that wraps around the building to the bin where Lem’s Bar-B-Q in Chatham (311 E. 75th St.) stores its hickory wood chips.
This week, the James Beard Foundation announced that Lem’s — specializing in ribs, hot links, fried shrimp and fried chicken — has been awarded a 2025 America’s Classics Award, one of only six given out annually across the United States. The award recognizes restaurants with a “timeless appeal” and that are “beloved by their communities.”
A number of the people in line Thursday had heard about the award, but that wasn’t why they were there, huddled beneath a towering metal chimney belching thick, white smoke.
Darnella Davis, 62, has been coming to Lem’s since she was a kid — for ribs and fried chicken.
“Then, if you got a little extra money, you’ll get you some hot links with some wrap-around bread and barbecue sauce. Mmm-mmm,” Davis said.
The “mmm-mmm” has a lot do with the coppery-brown sauce (its ingredients a secret, of course) and what Lem’s owner, Carmen Lemons, calls “the aquarium.” That’s a peculiar name for the glassed-in, 8-by-10-foot barbecue pit that would likely incinerate a minnow in seconds.
On the hot side of the glass, slabs of glistening ribs smoke and sizzle on a vast grill. Worker Roger Morgan opens a metal door beneath the grill and shovels in a heap of lump coal.
A few feet away, the rhythmic thwack of a cleaver hacking up a slab of ribs, before they’re loaded on top of a bed of French fries and finished off with a generous drizzle of barbecue sauce.
Carmen Lemons (William Lemons is her nephew) probably doesn’t need the national spotlight, but she’ll take it.
“It’s a very exciting experience for us. We weren’t expecting it, but we’re grateful to God that he has shown favor on our business,” said Lemons.
Lemons, a retired schoolteacher, took over the business from her father, who himself took over the business in 1968 — when it was located at 59th and State. James B. Lemons died in 2015 at the age of 87.
“Lem’s Bar-B-Q embodies the spirit of the America’s Classics Award — an enduring establishment that has been a cornerstone of delicious food, culture and community on Chicago’s South Side for more than 70 years. Under Carmen Lemons’ stewardship, the restaurant continues its family’s legacy and distinctive barbecue tradition,” Dawn Padmore, the foundation’s VP of the James Beard Awards, said in a statement.
Past Chicago-area winners of the America’s Classics Award include: The Berghoff (1999), 17 W. Adams; Tufano’s Vernon Park Tap (2008), 1073 W. Vernon Park Pl.; Calumet Fisheries (2010), 3259 E. 95th St.; Sun Wah BBQ (2018), 5039 N. Broadway.
The semifinalists for the foundation’s 2025 restaurant and chef awards were announced in January. Finalists will be announced on April 2, and winners will be revealed June 16 at the annual gala ceremony at Chicago’s Lyric Opera House, which will also mark the 10th year the ceremony has called Chicago home.
