Same Business, New Family
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“I think there’s a little bit of passing the torch,” says co-owner Bill FitzGerald, who until now has been the club’s only booking agent. As briefly noted in this column last month, he’s in the midst of developing a new restaurant adjacent to the club with Sheila McCoy, owner of Wicker Park’s Leo’s Lunchroom. “I thought to myself, How can I possibly put the effort required into this if I have all this other stuff on my mind? I’m not the most organized person in the world, but I’m a big music fan and somehow I’ve been able to muddle through 17 years of booking bands and keeping things together. I’m more interested right now in seeing something happen with the building [that the restaurant will be in].” So in May he began talking to Davies, who’d left another family joint, Schubas, in November after establishing it as a haven for up-and-coming alternative country.
Eight years ago the FitzGeralds purchased the building next door to the club, which then housed a dry cleaner and a TV repair shop. It’s been vacant for the last three years. Bill says they’ve wanted to put in a restaurant for some time, but that it took McCoy’s participation to kick things into gear. Next month the partners will begin taking bids, and if all goes well, construction will begin by fall on a restaurant Bill says he expects to be similar to Leo’s.
On a related note, house legend Frankie Knuckles will speak about the evolving role of the remixer at an event sponsored by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (that’s the Grammy people to you and me) at 6 PM Monday at the Chicago Recording Company, 232 E. Ohio. Nonmembers of the academy pay $7; call 312-786-1121 for more info.
