Unearth The Voyage
The Midwest has a way of grounding you. On Friday nights in Illinois, it isn’t about Michelin stars or tasting menus. It’s about fried fish, cold beer, and the hum of people who’ve worked all week and need a place to belong. These aren’t fancy suppers – they’re community rituals. You line up at the VFW, the Legion hall, or the church basement, cash in hand, stomach growling, and leave with your fingers greasy and your soul satisfied. Forget chasing trends. This is food that remembers where it came from.
1. VFW Post 1308 – Alton
In Alton, tucked along the Mississippi, the VFW Post 1308 is where you’ll find a Friday night that feels timeless. They don’t serve art on a plate – they serve fried cod, catfish, and perch, with two sides that remind you someone still respects the basics. The room is loud, kids running underfoot, vets swapping stories, beer sweating on the table. The fish hits the fryer hard, comes out golden, salted, and unapologetically honest. For twelve bucks you’re not just eating dinner – you’re buying into a community ritual that’s been repeated for decades. Grandma would approve, and probably tell you to loosen your belt for seconds.
2. The Venetian Club – Rockford
On Rockford’s west side, the Venetian Club feels like stepping into a time capsule where Friday night means one thing: fish fry. Members and guests crowd into the banquet hall, the chatter bouncing off wood-paneled walls while the fryer roars in the back. The cod is hand-battered, golden, and unapologetically crisp, served with fries and slaw that taste like they’ve been perfected over decades, not weeks. There’s no pretension here – just long tables, Styrofoam trays, and people who know good food doesn’t need to dress up. By the time the raffle tickets are called and the beer pitchers are drained, you’ll understand why locals swear it’s the best in town. This isn’t dinner. It’s Rockford’s weekly reunion.
3. DuPage County – Church & VFW Suppers
Even in suburban stretches of DuPage County, the fish fry tradition refuses to die. St. Petronille’s Knights of Columbus in Glen Ellyn still ladle out plates of fried cod and sides, the same way parish kitchens have done for generations. In Naperville, Judd Kendall VFW Post 3873 keeps the fryer hot, serving up cod, shrimp, and even pizza for the kids. Wheaton’s St. Michael’s Parish dishes walleye and lake perch in a gym-turned-dining hall, folding tables bending under Styrofoam trays. These aren’t gourmet nights – they’re family nights, fundraiser nights, Friday nights done the way Midwesterners have always done them: by feeding the people with whatever came out of the fryer first.
4. Bourbon Street Lounge – Rockford
Bourbon Street Lounge isn’t the first place you’d think of for a fish fry. It’s a bar with neon lights, loud music, and a name that makes you expect hurricanes and gumbo. But come Friday, the fryer takes center stage. Cod sandwiches stacked high, baskets of fish tacos with a spicy twist, and full fried dinners that could put grandma’s skillet to shame. The regulars pack the place, trading shots of whiskey for baskets of golden fish, all while the staff runs plates faster than the bar can pour. It’s rough around the edges, the kind of joint where you leave smelling like grease and beer, but you don’t care. Because here, fish Friday is sacred.
5. Oswego, Yorkville & Montgomery Legions
Drive through Kendall County on a Friday night and you’ll see the glow of neon and the smell of fish drawing you in. In Oswego, the American Legion Post 675 cranks out baskets from 4:30 sharp. Yorkville’s Post 489 keeps it humble – cod or perch fillets, fries, six bucks if you bring cash. Montgomery’s VFW Post 7452 ups the ante with all-you-can-eat catfish nuggets and popcorn shrimp. No matter where you pull in, the story is the same: families gathered at long tables, volunteers hustling plates, and fryers running like steam engines. It’s not flashy, it’s not curated – it’s what happens when small towns turn necessity into tradition, and tradition into flavor that lingers.
