"Chicago's Biggest Bar Just Went Year-Round!"

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Mar 19, 2009 6:00PM

Sun-Times sports reporter Roman Modrowski wrote over at his Full Court Press blog yesterday about the Cubs opening a new sports bar inside the park at the start of the season. The bar, located at the Addison/Sheffield corner of the ballpark by the Harry Caray "I am Borg" statue, will be open year round, seat 491 patrons, managed by the fine folks behind Harry Caray's (who's Wrigleyville location at the former Hi-Tops space is kitty corner from the new bar), and not have a view of the field. Patrons holding tickets to Cubs games will be able to enter the park proper via a turnstyle in the bar.

Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney said that the bar was necessary. "We need to compete with all of the other bars and restaurants in town." Sorry, but that's a comment straight out of the Reinsdorf/Einhorn playbook circa 1989. If Wrigleyville were a solar system, then the ballpark is El Sol. Without it — and the Margaritaville atmosphere that all involved have cultivated for the past quarter century — then the outlying area is nothing but cold, barren planets. One comment to Modrowski's post nail it on the head:

"Yet another brilliant move by cubs management to increase team revenue... I'd say this is just a flurry of bad ideas, to try and pad some certain cub officials resumes in the slim and dwindling chance the new owners will retain them in their jobs."

It's also another in a series of renovations and improvements that is slowly but surely transforming Wrigley Field from a timeless ballpark to our first cramped studio apartment.