Restaurant was 'home' for cook killed on cigarette break

A longtime cook at a Bronzeville neighborhood barbecue restaurant was shot and killed shortly after stepping outside for a cigarette, police and a fellow employee said this morning.

Still wearing his apron, Joshua Hudgins, 34, left the restaurant about 9 p.m. as “a little gangbanger” was walking past and may have stopped, a co-worker said in a telephone interview this morning.

Someone riding by in a light-colored vehicle opened fire at the “gangbanger” but missed, instead hitting Hudgins in the chest, according to the co-worker and police.

gins, of the 4900 block of South Champlain Avenue, had been an employee “for many years” of Alice’s Bar-B-Que, 65 E. 43rd St., starting as a young man, said the co-worker, who did not want to be named. Hudgins’ father and several of his eight siblings also worked there, according to a sister.

“It’s truly sad,” the co-worker said.

A friend of Hudgins, Henry Ramsey, said he saw a silver car pass by and shoot Hudgins three times. "Through the grace of God I'm here, because I was standing beside (Hudgins) two minutes prior to him getting shot," Ramsey said.

Hudgins was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:45 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Hudgins was a single and devoted dad with two children, a girl, 8, and a boy, 6, said his sister Paula Harris.

"I was shocked," she said this morning in a voice hoarse from a night of crying. "I have eight brothers and sister and we were born and raised in Chicago and we've never had anything like this happen," she said.

Alice’s was a sort of home away from home for the Hudgins family, she said. Owner Gregory Johnson is  a longtime family friend who hired Hudgins’ father and several of his children over the years, she said.

"I grew up knowing everyone there," she said.

Her brother’s slaying made no sense, she continued.

"My brother was not a gangbanger. He wasn't a drug dealer," Harris said. "He was a worker. He was a father. That's all he wanted to do and I wish that people would start thinking and valuing lives."

Even as she stared at his body at the hospital, she said, she couldn’t fully grasp the tragedy. "It's not real. I saw my brother at the hospital last night and…it's just unreal."

She is hopeful that one of several cameras outside the business may have captured an image of the shooter.  

Police are looking for the occupants of the drive-by vehicle.
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