Black business giant, founder of Leon´s Bar-B-Q dies at 92

I don't remember ever having Leon's but I've heard about this establishment often over time. I wish I can give you a review, but I don't have one unfortunately. The man who started this business or at least gave it some fame and fortune has passed on. From the Defender...

Services for Chicago's barbeque king, Leon Finney Sr., have been finalized. Finney, founder of Leon's Bar-B-Q, died April 4 after a battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 92. Born the son of an entrepreneur, Finney came to Chicago from Mississippi in 1938 hoping to join the Navy.

But a head injury he sustained while working at a manufacturing plant cut that dream short, his son, the Rev. Leon Finney Jr., pastor of Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church, said. A few years after arriving in the city, and with the help of his father T.J. Huddleston, owner of many funeral homes in Mississippi, Finney embarked on his own road as a business owner.

His aunt, Bertha Montgomery Brody, worked for a man who ran a barbeque shop on Garfield Boulevard with a bookie joint in the basement, Finney Jr. said of his father. When police raided the joint, and shut it down, the owner offered to sell the barbeque enterprise for $700.

Finney bought it with money from his father. He opened up Leon's Bar-B-Q on Garfield Boulevard in 1941, and a few years later, in the same vicinity, added two more restaurants. But, the post-war economy wreaked havoc on Black business owners and meat prices were too high for Finney to keep the company afloat.

He suspended the restaurants' operations for about 10 years, then reopened in a different location, near 83rd and Cottage Grove Avenue, said Finney Jr., who is also a community activist and founder of The Woodlawn Organization.