Fifty/50 Sports Bar closing after 16 years
A Wicker Park sports bar perhaps best known for its award-winning Buffalo wings — and a place popular with professional athletes and first responders — is set to close in September after 16 years in the neighborhood.
Fifty/50 Sports Bar's last day is Sept. 8 — right after the Bears' season home opener.
"It's very rare to be able to close the doors on your own terms. After almost 17 years, we needed to do a ... refresh, and it's not the right time for us to do it," said Scott Weiner, who opened the bar with his buddy and business partner, Greg Mohr, in March 2008. The two co-founded the Fifty/50 restaurant group in Chicago.
Weiner and Mohr own the building and are planning to rent out the space at 2047 W. Division Street.
"It seemed like a great opportunity to be able to pass on the location to the next generation of restaurants in the area," Weiner said.
Mohr and Weiner opened the sports bar — they currently own 13 other restaurants, mostly in the Chicago area through their Fifty/50 restaurant group — shortly after the city's smoking ban went into effect.
Weiner, who lived in Wicker Park at the time, said he'd seen a need for a sports bar in the neighborhood — but only under the right conditions.
"We saw an opportunity to serve, with high-quality bar food in a sports bar environment that just didn't exist before — because who'd want to eat high-quality food in a place with someone smoking a cigarette?" Weiner said.
He described the food as simple and made-from-scratch.
"We've never been a truffle-oil-in-your-French-fries kind of place," he said.
The bar will be running a number of specials during its final week, including 50% off wings Sept. 5 to Sept. 8.