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Why Carson’s made the SteakMap list

Carson’s is a barbecue house that also does prime steaks, and it has been doing both since 1977. It earns its place here on longevity and on one genuinely unusual credential: Carson’s has catered to U.S. Presidents aboard Air Force One and Air Force Two, and has done so since the year it opened.

The family

Dean Carson founded it and still owns and runs it — a third-generation Chicagoan whose family has been in the food and beverage business since the 1930s. The stated mission has not moved in nearly fifty years: generous portions of good food at fair prices.

That is a different proposition from most rooms in this directory. Carson’s is not chasing a dry-aging program or a wagyu list. It is a high-volume American restaurant that happens to take its beef seriously, and it has outlasted almost everything that opened alongside it.

Ribs first

Be honest about what you are ordering. The house bills itself as “America’s #1 Barbecue! Since ’77”, and the barbecue ribs are the reason most people come. The prime steaks are real and they are good, but the ribs are the thing the kitchen has spent five decades perfecting.

The Deerfield room

This location is at 200 North Waukegan Road in Deerfield, in Chicago’s northern suburbs — the North Shore outpost of a restaurant whose original is downtown in River East. It is a family-dinner room rather than a special-occasion one.

Prices

Carson’s does not publish a machine-readable priced menu, so SteakMap has no verified cuts, weights or prices to quote. Grade beyond “prime steaks” and any aging are not published, and we make no claim about them.

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