Nothing Sheepish About Wool Street Tavern, Barrington

Normal Rockwell lives in Barrington. Or at least I thought he did when I picked it as the town to raise my family and keep them safe. Seems it worked. A quiet burg an hour by car or train from downtown Chicago, Barrington has been around since the 1850s. Today it’s a cute little village surrounded by expensive homes, immaculately kept lawns, and million dollar horses grazing in back “yards.”

There are ordinary families like ours, and celebrity familes. “Rumored” to live in Barrington, or owning homes here are Stevie Wonder, Oprah Winfrey, Chicago Bears Mike Singletary, and Walter Payton.  I can attest to the latter two, as their kids were in school with my daughter.  Singletary and I worked the pizza tent at the annual grade school carnival.

The Wool Street Sports Bar is a rather new addition to the town.  When we moved here 25 years ago, I’m not sure there was a bar. Well, maybe one.  Now the village is host to the requisite hoity toity cuisine outlets, fancy grocery stores, and posh shops one would expect to find in an area like this, 78% of the people are homeowners, and the median house value is north of mid six figures……and well up in to the 8 figure range, as well.  The ‘town’ is really four areas, Barrington itself, North Barrington, Barrington Hills, and South Barrington. Together they make up one of the wealthiest zip codes in America.

Wool Street has a very lengthy menu of American bar food, burgers, salads, pizza, dinner plates.

I went with the stuffed burger, Wool Street’s version of the burger that made Minneapolis famous, the Jucy Lucy. (sic).  This one was stuffed with gorgonzola and bacon, with a very nice flame finish, great char flavor.  The interior cheese was very ample.  The burger was parked on a soft bakery roll with an egg wash, and tomato and lettuce.  A wide variety of sides come with each sandwich, I went with tots, which were more than satisfactory.

This is a darned fine burger.  Worth a trip to Barrington.