The Shrimp Barn - Minooka, IL.

Came across The Shrimp Barn while looking for a new quick, cheap spot for a drink and dinner on the way home.



Located in downtown Minooka, a strip of old stone and brick buildings across the street from a grain elevator. Nice interior, tin walls and ceiling. Front of the place is kind of a rummage sale of furniture, etc., for sale. About 8 old wood tables, a couple looking like dining room tables. Kind of a bar, and a pick up area with the extensive menu board above it. No tv's, ABita and a few other craft beers by the bottle as well as Coke in the bottle.

First vist was promising, the fried chicken was excellent, a crunchy crust version of fried chicken they will serve with honey drizzled over it. Candy like. Fried shimp on that visit were a little overcooked, owner stepped right up and apologized and took them off the check. Chatted with him a while and found out he is from the S.Side and we talked about shrimp shacks and his place. He said all his seafood is fresh, shrimp from the gulf, gator from Louisiana, etc. Nice guy.

Last night was great allround. 1/2 lb. jumbo shrimp, popping hot and perfectly cooked. Came in @ $9.99. :



I also got a 4 pc.(1/2) fried chicken to go @ $6.19 probably near the top valuewise of anywhere I know of.

Buddys 4pc. w/ fries(yeah, its as crunchy and sticky as it looks. mercy...):



Really happy to find this place.

The Shrimp Barn
125 Mondamin
Minooka, IL.

http://www.shrimpbarn.com

Jim-

I'm really happy your share your finds with us. You're in a part of the area I don't get to often but it's good to know I'll be able to find some good eats if I do get there.

Jim, you hit a home run with this one! We had lunch at the Shrimp Barn today and to us, it was well worth the hour one way drive down Rte. 47. The place is, well, cool! We got there a few minutes before opening at 11 and window gawked at some interesting antiques. Chef Robert soon opened the door and warmly greeted us and made us welcome. The menu choices are extensive so we had to sit and decide from a long list of seafood and then decide which size porrtion we wanted. I went for a 1/2 lb. of regular shrimp and a small order of onion rings while my partner choose a 1/2 lb. of crawfish tails and hot fries. All the sauces availible are home made and Chef Robert made great emphasis on the fact that everything is home made. The wines are all Illinois made, I had a glass red from Lynford Winerey which I believe I believe is in Roselle. There is a limited beer selection. As we sat there someone came in for carry out, a single diner seemed to order one of everything and another couple came in as we left. We still had time to talk to Chef Robert who is culinary school trained and worked at the Ritz Carlton, Harry Carry's and Morton's before opening his own place in Willowbrook. After a few years of that he "retired" and moved to Minooka where he found the space he is in now because the previous tenant, a long time Italian restaurant, closed in September. He keeps it simple, just the seafood (he does grill and saute so not all fried), fries, o-rings and simple appetizers while his wife handles the antique selection which is also simple. BTW, I took home a crawfish po-boy to be savored for lunch tomorrow..... and a big OH... I forgot to mention he has fresh soft shelled crabs that he just got in today! I don't know if he mentioned it to you Jim, but our friend Cajun Ron is very much responsible for his selection of food! Ron helped him link up with suppliers of alligator and crawfish! They are good friends! It fits!

nice, glad you made it in, and great additional details.

The chef/owner is one of those folks I root for he was so friendly on my couple of visits.

jimswside wrote:The chef/owner is one of those folks I root for he was so friendly on my couple of visits.

I agree Jim. I was glad to learn he was a friend of Ron because they are alike in some ways. Real and warm people who love what they do.

ive been back a few times over the past month or so, fried chicken is always consistently good, shrimp and fish have had off days. Breading issues, and overcooked shrimp the last time I was there.

Hoping they can find some consistancy on the shrimps.

Jim, does he have any helpers or waiters? When we were there he was the only worker, cooking and waiting tables. I can see where that would lead to inconsistencies.

LikestoEatout wrote:Jim, does he have any helpers or waiters? When we were there he was the only worker, cooking and waiting tables. I can see where that would lead to inconsistencies.

he had a girl waiting tables, but he does seem the be the only one in the kitchen.

i hope they can work it out.

The owners of this place have opened a new location in downtown Plainfield called "The Shrimp Bar'n Grill".

We tried it out tonight - I've never been to the Minooka location. They only have a 1/2 menu right now because they just opened, but I would wait a few weeks before going to this location. There were some SERIOUS bugs, service-wise.
The owners were very friendly and apologetic, but I will return once they have time to work the kinks out. We were ok with the speed-bumps, but other customers clearly were not.

The fried shrimp were fantastic - and a HUGE portion. My daughter and I both split these. I'm getting these when we go back.
The grilled shrimp tacos were good. My wife really liked them.
I ordered the fried crawfish tails - they were good, but I prefer boiled. They lose their flavor when fried, IMO.
My son ordered a burger It looked good, he devoured it. But still...

In what may be a nod to BBQ places - everything came sans sauce. There were 3 housemade sauces that were served with the meal that you could add if you wanted to, but I gotta be honest, the food was better without them.


24136 W. Lockport St.
Plainfield, IL
60544