Discovering a Maxwell Street Polish Sausage at a Dallas Dive Bar

Rumor has it that right before the outbreak of World War II, Jim’s Original hot dog stand in Chicago’s old Maxwell Steet Market District debuted a new tubular treat: grilled Polish sausage served in a bun and topped with mustard, grilled onions and sport peppers. 

This simple serving of meat on a bun quickly became a Chicagoland staple, as indispensable and integral to the Chicago food scene as tavern-style pizza, the Chicago hot dog, the Italian beef sandwich and later, for better or worse, the deep-dish pizza.

In the mid-'90s, the scourge of gentrification closed the original Maxwell Street Market, but by then, the sausage had transcended and broken free of mere geographic limits and spread to the hinterlands. One of those hinterlands would include our very own North Texas, which now offers several places to enjoy this simple alternative to the hot dog. Chicago ex-pats, as well as fans of encased meats in a bun everywhere, rejoiced.
Lee Harvey’s is the latest spot to offer the Maxwell Street Polish on its menu, sourced from Jimmy’s Food Store, no less. This sausage is the real McCoy, not some ersatz wannabe piece of meat, “imported,” as Jimmy’s proudly proclaims, directly from Chicago. 

Lee Harvey’s is probably the quintessential Dallas dive bar, hitting all the right notes, with a great jukebox, large patio, well-worn dartboard, cold beer and typical pub grub staples like cheeseburgers and onion rings, so why not add a Polish to the menu? Once our intrepid food editor let us know that this was a thing now, we knew we’d have to try it.

We ventured out for an early lunch in the middle of the week, and Lee Harvey’s in the bright sunlight with parking spots everywhere was a welcome respite, a totally different animal and a bit disconcerting. Who eats Polish sausage at 11 a.m., anyway? Evidently, on this day, we did.
There were several printed signs proclaiming the new culinary entry, describing it to the uninitiated as “…a Maxwell Street Polish sausage from Jimmy’s Food Store in East Dallas, slathered in mustard, topped with grilled onions, sauerkraut, Serrano peppers and a Polish dill pickle served on Jalapeno bread from Empire Baking.”

The sauerkraut is clearly illegal: not a proper ingredient for a Maxwell Street Polish. Kraut only belongs on a brat or in a pinch a hot dog if you’re in New York and not Chicago and have to make do. Still, we’re not monsters who demand blindly following culinary norms and traditions in a monolithic nature, rigidly adhering to a homogenous set of gastronomic precepts. We’re bigger than that, flexible in our tastes and willing to let people experiment. Plus, we were hungry.
We waited on the eerily empty patio, trying not to let the kraut bother us, and when it arrived, we weren’t disappointed. The bun was slightly grilled and dressed with yellow mustard, though if it was jalapeño bread, it was subtly flavored. The onions were chopped and grilled, the pickle spear spanned the entire length of the bun, and the kraut was (thankfully) not overpowering.

The star of the plate was the Maxwell Street Polish sausage: perfectly seasoned, ground not too coarsely or too finely, perfectly charred, and with a good snap to the bite. Jimmy’s knows what they’re doing in sourcing this ingredient, and Lee Harvey’s prepared it well. At $8.95, it’s priced right. They probably could have charged $12, and there would be no complaints.

Next time, however, it’s getting ordered without the kraut. I may not be a monster, but I am still a creature of habit. A dog might need to be dragged through the garden, but a fine sausage needs much less adornment to shine through.

Lee Harvey’s needs to add some Old Style on tap now to complete the scene.