Dee's Place in Joliet Offers Free, Live Entertainment

Just along Jefferson Street in Joliet is a restaurant that serves up award-winning fried chicken.
"It's a comfort food restaurant, soul food that features southern cuisine," Dee, whose name inspired the restaurant's name said. She did not want her last name used.
Dee owns the restaurant with Kareem Abdullah and it's the second Dee's Place in Illinois. The were formally located in the Bucktown/Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago.
"In Chicago, we were voted best fried chicken," Abdullah said.
The vote was a 2011 contest run by the Chicago Tribune.
In addition to carrying southern cuisine and comfort food such as fried chicken and catfish, mac and cheese and cornbread, locals who have discovered this restaurant at 368 W. Jefferson Street keep returning for the live entertainment.
The restaurant offers live entertainment on the weekends - comedy on Fridays, blues music on Saturdays and jazz on Sundays.
"We don't ask you to pay for the show," Dee said. "We just ask you to eat dinner."
The Friday night comedy show is adult-oriented, but the Saturday and Sunday music sets are family-friendly.
"You come and eat dinner and the show is on us," Abdullah said. "When the kids are here, (the band members) let the kids play on the instruments."
The restaurant has been open in Joliet since February. They plan to complete the indoor decorations with historic blues posters.
"We're going to do a 1940s/1950s Harlem Renaissance theme," Abdullah said. "Back in the 40s or 50s, if you were African-American, you had to go to Harlem to be discovered because that was our Hollywood."
The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday and noon to 8 p.m., Sunday. The comedy show begins at 9 p.m. on Fridays and music is 7:30 p.m. to midnight on Saturday and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.