A bent and rusted Coca-Cola sign hangs on the unevenly plastered white wall at Jambalaya, the Wicker Park po’boy shop. “I tore that off the side of a closed, run-down old country store near my hometown,” says owner Craig Cameron, who hails from Waveland, Mississippi, 35 miles east of New Orleans near the Louisiana border. On another wall is a framed poster from the 2001 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and in the center of the small room a black pole supports two street signs marking the fictitious intersection of Bourbon and Tchoupitoulas streets. “I thought if anyone could pronounce Tchoupitoulas, they’d get a free sandwich,” Cameron jokes, although he’s since revoked the offer.
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The 33-year-old moved to Chicago in 1993 to help out his ailing father, who’d lived here since the mid-70s. Previously studying biology at the University of Florida, Cameron transferred to the University of Illinois at Chicago to finish his degree. He’d been planning to go to med school, but he didn’t get any further than taking the entrance exam before his side job as a project manager at Sprint PCS lured him into the telecommunications industry. In 2000 he started a business that built cell towers for phone companies.
The brothers looked for a smaller space. “I thought, you know, a sandwich shop is a good place to start,” says Craig. In February 2002 they signed a lease on what used to be the Beat Parlor record store, on Damen just south of Wabansia. After waiting nine months for a building permit, they quickly built a working kitchen and dining room, furnishing it with fewer than a dozen tables and only a chalkboard menu. Jambalaya opened in January.
Jamabalaya is at 1653 N. Damen, 773-289-3678.
