Fatback Butcher: Chicago's New Gourmet Sandwich Shop

Fatback Butcher opened March 9 in the Loop, and the pitch is straightforward: a gourmet sandwich shop paired with a European-style market, positioned steps from the Chicago River to catch office workers on lunch breaks, tourists wandering from the Riverwalk, and condo residents who need a reliable neighborhood spot.

The project brings together chef Charlie McKenna, who built his reputation at Lillie’s Q and Roux, and Scott Weiner and Greg Mohr of the Fifty/50 Group, the team behind The Alston, Kindling, The Berkshire Room, and West Town Bakery. McKenna’s culinary biography spans Michelin-starred kitchens, including Tru and Avenues, before he pivoted to barbecue, racked up competition titles, and built a national retail line of sauces and rubs. At Fatback, he’s applying that same obsessive attention to what many people consider humble territory.

“Everyone knows what a sandwich is and what they’re getting for the most part,” McKenna said. “If we can execute them with higher-quality ingredients and better techniques throughout the process, then I think it’s something we can really shine with.”

His cooking philosophy, which he describes as “simple pedestrian food that has a lot of love behind each component,” sets the tone for the menu. Nothing here is accidental.

The bread program alone signals that. Fatback sources from three separate purveyors: Publican Quality Bread, Buttercrumb Bakery, and Fifty/50’s own West Town Bakery. The lineup includes sourdough, pizza bianca, French sub rolls, garlic butter buns, New England rolls, and potato buns. Each was chosen specifically to suit a particular sandwich, a level of deliberateness that produced enough test samples to bury a kitchen. “At one point, I was like we’re going to have breadcrumbs for a year,” McKenna said.

Two sandwiches illustrate how the kitchen operates. The jambon plays against type. McKenna reaches for Lady Edison country ham from North Carolina, a cured product that sits in the same family as Spanish jamon and Italian prosciutto, and pairs it with pickled mustard seeds and whole-grain-mustard-infused butter, served on a crunchy demi baguette. It nods to a classic French jambon beurre while pulling in McKenna’s Southern background.

The steak sandwich is more architecturally complex. It crosses Chicago’s Italian beef with a French dip. Seasoned ribeye is slow-roasted to medium rare, then blasted with high heat to develop the Maillard crust before being shaved thin. Caramelized onions get folded into aioli for the spread. The dipping sauce riffs on a traditional au poivre, reduced with bourbon rather than cognac. Homemade potato chips land on top for crunch, and the whole thing arrives on toasted sourdough.

The rest of the menu extends the geographic range. A muffuletta and a porchetta sit alongside meatballs in spicy vodka sauce and a vegetarian roasted beet option. The French butcher shop aesthetic running through the space gives the menu a coherent frame even as it pulls from different culinary traditions.

Fatback’s timing matters in a broader context. The Loop is still recalibrating after years of reduced office occupancy. Employers have pressed for more in-person work in 2025 and 2026, and foot traffic downtown has gradually recovered, but the businesses serving that corridor have had to fight for it. A well-executed lunch option with a clear identity, anchored by serious culinary credentials, fits what the neighborhood actually needs right now. Generic fast-casual doesn’t cut through anymore.

For Chicagoans outside the Loop, Fatback is worth a trip specifically because McKenna treats the sandwich as a format worthy of the same rigor he applied to competition barbecue and fine dining prep. The jambon alone reflects years of thinking about cured pork. The steak sandwich is a study in technique deployed in service of something approachable.

Whether the European market component gives the space staying power beyond the lunch rush will depend on how well it connects with the condo residents McKenna and his partners are counting on. But the sandwiches, based on what’s been put in front of critics so far, give Fatback a foundation worth building on.