SBIF Spotlight: Bridgeport sausage factory keeps it real
Smoking up to 12,000 pounds of meat every day is a great way to make a living — except maybe when the work day is over. Just ask Nicole Makowski, owner of Makowski Real Sausage in Bridgeport.
“Everywhere I go, I smell like a smoked sausage,” she said, chuckling. “Which isn’t a problem for the most part, except at the gym.”
For nearly a century, four generations of the Makowski family have been smoking meats in Bridgeport. Thanks to a long-time DPD program, they’re staying put.
Today, Makowski employs 33 union workers producing between 8,000 and 12,000 pounds per day of sausage, Italian beef, pork belly and ribs. She said her company now makes 243 different types of cased meats for retail stores and restaurants, including Kaiser Tiger, Marz Community Brewing, Pleasant House Bakery and The Duck Inn.
Yet the process of making sausage is hard on her building, located in the Pilsen Industrial Corridor. Heat, salt, vibration and water have slowly worn away at the concrete structure, which dates to 1897. Several years ago, engineers told Makowski she had to put $500,000 into her foundation, plumbing and electrical work in order to keep operating.
A representative from the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council walked into her office with a flyer one day and tried to sell her on the Small Business Improvement Fund (SBIF), a DPD grant program backed by Tax Increment Financing that seeks to preserve retail and industrial operations.
“I wasn’t really sure what they were selling — and it turned out that they were selling me the best opportunity of my lifetime,” Makowski said. “Because of this program, I’m going to be able to be a part of the city and keep jobs here.”
Makowski was approved for a maximum SBIF grant of $150,000, which supplemented her own financing. The work was completed over a two-week period in November and included masonry repairs, concrete work and new piping.
Makowski Real Sausage was founded as Victory Sausage by her great-grandparents, Polish and Austrian immigrants who had seen success during World War I with a small butcher shop in northern Wisconsin.
In 1920, they opened a sausage-making shop in Chicago at 35th and Ashland, and ten years later acquired a bankrupt hog-butcher at 2710 S. Poplar Ave., where the business remains today.
With each generation, the Makowski family has changed their specialty to suit demand. From boxed hot-dogs in the 1920s, to canned beans and sausages during World War II, to lunch meats in the 1970s.
Makowski took over the business from her father in 2002 and hopped on another trend by becoming one of the first sausage-makers in Chicago to be certified organic. The company’s best-selling product remains the classic Maxwell Street Polish, which retails in some Chicagoland grocers. But as the organic and “foodie” craze has ramped up, Makowski took toward making specialty sausage.
One of the most successful is The Duck Inn’s “Duck Fat Dog,” which won the “Top Dog” prize from a Food Network sausage festival at Ravinia in 2014. Makowksi said her hottest item at the moment is a Polish sausage with beer, bacon and cheese curds.
“Yes, believe it or not, it’s a sausage with whole cheese curds in it,” said Makowski, laughing. “It’s so delicious, but it’s dangerous for your grill. You could really start a forest fire if you’re not careful.”
Learn more about Makowski Real Sausage at www.realsausage.com.
In 2017, SBIF financed $7.7 million in grants for 148 businesses and nonprofits across Chicago, resulting in the creation or retention of more than 2,000 jobs. The program is available in about 90 of Chicago’s Tax Increment Financing districts. Contact Somercor for more information.
