Grass-Fed & Pasture-Raised Restaurants in Chicago

Big Jones is a Southern restaurant in Andersonville with a long-running relationship with a Kansas grass-fed beef producer.

The menu is Southern comfort cooking, with sourcing relationships dating to 2006. It's suited to a relaxed dinner, with brunch also served.

Gibsons Italia is an Italian steakhouse from the Gibsons Restaurant Group, overlooking the Chicago River in Fulton River District.

The menu runs several beef programs side by side, from Prime Angus to Japanese Kobe. It's suited to a special dinner or client meal.

Horse Thief Hollow is a South Side brewpub and scratch kitchen in Beverly that raises its own cattle two miles away.

It's the only restaurant in Chicago that raises its own grass-fed beef. It's a neighborhood brewpub, casual and family-friendly.

RPM Steak is a modern steakhouse from Lettuce Entertain You and the Rancic family in River North.

The steak menu runs wide, with specific, traceable cuts. It's suited to a celebration or business dinner.

True Food Kitchen is a wellness-focused chain built around Dr. Andrew Weil's anti-inflammatory diet, with Mediterranean and Asian influences, at this River North location on Erie Street.

The menu includes 100% grass-fed burgers, sourdough-crust pizza, and shareable bowls. Most entrees run $12-16, suited to lunch, dinner, or weekend brunch.

Are there grass-fed beef restaurants in Chicago?

Yes. True Food Kitchen (River North) runs 100% grass-fed beef chain-wide through a Verde Farms partnership, confirmed by a named trade press report. Gibsons Italia (Fulton River District) lists "Gibsons Grassfed Australian" as one of four standing beef programs on its own menu. RPM Steak (River North) names a specific Bone-In Grass-Fed Ribeye sourced from Reidsville, GA. Horse Thief Hollow (Beverly) raises its own grass-fed Angus cattle two miles from the brewery, in partnership with a local agricultural high school, though its own site discloses the cattle also eat spent brewers grain alongside grass and hay. Big Jones (Andersonville) has a documented history with Tallgrass Beef Company and lists a house-ground grass-fed burger, though we sourced that listing from a menu aggregator rather than the restaurant's own site, which blocked every direct check we tried. Several other well-known Chicago spots with sourcing-forward reputations, including Publican Quality Meats, Boeufhaus, and Girl & The Goat, use "responsibly raised" or similar language but don't make an explicit grass-fed claim on their own current menus, so we left them off. See each listing for exactly what's confirmed and by whom.

What does it mean that Horse Thief Hollow's cattle eat "spent brewers grain"?

Spent brewers grain is the leftover barley and grain solids from the brewing process, after the sugars have been extracted to make beer. Horse Thief Hollow's own site describes its cattle diet as tall grass and hay from pasture, supplemented with this grain byproduct, and calls the result "grass-fed beef." It's a different situation from a formal grain-finishing period at a feedlot, since the grain here is a brewery byproduct fed alongside ongoing pasture grazing rather than a switch to a grain-based diet before slaughter, but it's still a grain input, so we're naming it plainly rather than letting "grass-fed" stand without the detail. Judge for yourself whether that fits what you're looking for.