Pit Master Ed Nero

I am a disabled veteran. In 1988 I was injured in a helicopter crash and later honorably discharged from the United States Army. The business is owned and operated by me and my three business partners; Rhonda Gage, Kim Nero and Katie Sullivan. I am originally from the south side of Chicago and I am the youngest of seven children. My dad taught me how to cook at a very young age because he believed that it was important for me to be able to cook for myself and not spend all of my money on fast food restaurants.

I worked in corporate America for twenty years, attended culinary training at Kendall College and in 2000 I formed my own catering company and began catering part time. After being downsized in October of 2007 I really began to focus more on catering because the economy was headed into a recession and jobs were hard to come by. Right around that time I met my neighbor Jason Mckie who was the starting fullback for the Chicago Bears. We became very good friends and he invited me to serve food at his charity event where I met a lot of the Chicago Bear players. About two weeks later I get a call from Devin Hester. He had my food at the charity event and wanted to know if I would cater his birthday party. About a month after that another Chicago Bear player called for a catering order and this gave me the courage to throw caution to the wind and open up a restaurant.

In 2008 we emptied out our bank accounts, 401K accounts, maxed out our credit cards and opened up our first restaurant in North Chicago. Five months into the lease I learned that my landlord was taking my rent money and keeping it rather than paying the mortgage and the bank seized the building but chose to honor my lease. The business was struggling and in 2009 we appeared on ABC 7’s Hungry Hound which provided the business with a much needed boost. Over the years we opened and closed restaurants in Libertyville, downtown Waukegan and in Waukegan’s Fountain Square. On February 18, 2025 we opened our 18,000 sq ft forever home located at 651 Lakehurst Rd in Waukegan.

We’ve cooked for several Chicago Bear players over the years including: Tommie Harris, Garrett Wolfe, Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, Lovie Smith, Johnny Knox, Matt Forte, Isreal Adonaje, Antony “Spice” Adams just to name a few. We’ve also been featured in an internation documentary film about current businesses operating in former Pizza Hut’s called a “Slice of Life”. We’ve also been mentioned in the Washington Post and featured on shows like Check Please, NBC’s Café, WGN’s Lunchbreak and WGN’s Chicago’s Best and in 2017 and 2019 bestthingsil.com voted us one of the top five BBQ restaurants in Illinois and recently voted one of the top 100 BBQ restaurants in the country.

Our restaurant offers some of the best barbeque Lake County has tasted in a very long time. All of our meat is seasoned with our special dry rub and slow smoked with hickory wood. All of our food is made in house from scratch daily. So come out to Big Ed’s BBQ and try our BBQ for yourself that way when people ask you the question, what’s that smell? You can tell them that’s Big Ed’s award winning BBQ great barbeque and then some.