Big Guys Sausage: 'Blue Collar Gourmet' for Roosevelt Road

Big Guys Sausage doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

There's not a single frill to be found in this classic Chicago-style roadside stand at 7021 W. Roosevelt Road in Berwyn, with its menu filled with pork chops, fresh-cut fries and charbroiled sausages of all sorts.

"Sausage," said Brendan O'Connor, 29 and a native South Oak Parker, "is a good canvas for creating lots of different flavor combinations."

On the menu, of course, are various assortments of sausage. There are Italian sausages (chicken or pork), bratwurst (with honey mustard and grilled onions or slathered in cheese sauce, chimichurri and pickled red onion), Polish sausage (classic Maxwell Street-style with grilled onions and spicy mustard or "fresh" with brown mustard and sauerkraut), a hot link with homemade barbecue sauce and cole slaw, a Chorizo sausage topped with grilled chile peppers, sour cream and pickled red onion, a buffalo chicken sausage with ranch or blue cheese and matchstick carrots and celery, and a crawfish sausage mixed with pork.

Also on the menu is a bone-in pork chop sandwich topped with red peppers, grilled onions and horseradish mustard and served on a sesame seed bun, and a classic Chicago hot dog.

All will be served with fresh-cut fries. And with none of the sausage or sandwich offerings priced over five bucks, Big Guys is a bargain.

As for sides, the options are few: you can get a Bacon Beer Cheese Soup, tamales or French fries — there's a larger-sized fry, cheese fries, chili cheese fries or another local culinary tradition: butter garlic (BG) fries. You want a salad? They'll serve you a salad but chances are it'll have sausage in it.

For O'Connor, the debut of Big Guys, named in honor of late family friend, union leader, peace activist and youth baseball coach Bill Davis, is an about-face in his career.

With no formal cooking lessons other than helping prepare meals at big family parties, he embarked on this small-business venture after losing his sales job in 2011. After months of knock downs, construction and installation — aided, he said, by help from the Berwyn Development Corporation and some investors — the Big Guys opened July 13.

Housed in the former Berwyn Parky's location, the space doesn't have seating, though customers can belly up to the counter facing Roosevelt Road and dig in. The setup is a nod to O'Connor's South Oak Park upbringing, when Parky's was Parky's and not some iteration of another failed Mexican restaurant.

It's an honest place. A place for a quick, cheap, good lunch. Or dinner. Or for some after-hours chow.

"A lot of people were upset when the old Parky's closed down," he said. "I wanted to restore the luster of an old-fashioned hot dog stand on Roosevelt Road."

Big Guys Sausage is located at 7021 W. Roosevelt Road in Berwyn. (708) 317-5213. Hours: Mon-Thu - 11 a.m to Midnight; Friday and Saturday - 11 a.m. to 3 a.m.; Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit them on Facebook and Twitter.