Beyoncé Ate At Buck's In Wicker Park And Gave The Chef Free 'Formation' Tickets
By Rachel Cromidas in Food on May 31, 2016 8:43PM
Beyoncé attends the 2016 Met Gala in New York. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for People.com)
Soldier Field was the place to be this weekend, thanks to Beyoncé's two-day Chicago stop on her Formation World Tour. But it looks like Wicker Park's southern food outpost, Buck's, was the place to be after her Friday night performance: The Queen herself reportedly stopped in the Division Street restaurant after her show, with a crew that included her husband Jay Z and Michelle Williams.
Beyoncé and her friends arrived at Buck's around 12:30 a.m. and stayed for hours after the spot closed, a restaurant rep confirmed for Chicagoist. Social media and photography were banned during the visit, but staff members did not leave empty-handed: Beyoncé gave four fourth-row tickets to her Saturday night performance to the restaurant's chef, who in turn gave some out to the late-night waitstaff.
Chef Bernard Bennett told Chicagoist that he was nervous to cook for Beyoncé. Her late-night visit took the 29-year-old by surprise.
"A representative of theirs called, and was looking for somewhere to be. I thought it was fake at first... then they called back and said 'Yeah, we're coming,'" he said. Since Buck's was getting ready to close around 1 a.m., Bennett "set them up in our lounge and let them be upstairs by themselves."
Beyoncé was "dressed down," he added, in "regular clothes"—not a tour leotard in the house. Before she left at around 3 a.m., she thanked Bennett with the tickets, which he shared with two Buck's waitresses who had also stayed late to serve Beyoncé.
Beyoncé, Jay Z and company dined on several of Buck's signature Southern dishes, according to rep Isabella Palmer, including fried green tomatoes, fried chicken, buttermilk biscuits and a dish of eggs, smoked salmon and Creole mustard. For dessert, the group ordered Beignets with espresso butterscotch and S'mores Biscuits.