The Blarney Stone has been around for more then five decades. | Google
A fixture for Cubs fans, Blarney Stone, will close after the North Siders’ season ends
Chicago’s Blarney Stone, the Irish watering hole that’s served Wrigleyville for half a century, will permanently close early next month at the end of the Cubs’ season. The bar will close its doors for the last time on Saturday, October 2 at 3424 N. Sheffield Avenue, ownership announced in a Facebook post.
First opened in 1970 on the corner of Sheffield and Newport avenues, the neighborhood stalwart typifies a sports bar of the era, equipped with a pool table, green pressed tin ceiling, dark wood paneled walls, and decorative Irish flag. Pope John Paul I and President John F. Kennedy gaze down from framed photographs above the bar over crowds of patrons tossing back $4 beers.
Sad fans took to social media to share their stories about Chicago’s Blarney Stone, recalling meeting loved ones for the first time and watching the Cubs’ World Series Game 7 win in 2016.
“This bar has been a fixture for so long in Chicago that it’s practically a tradition,” one writes on Facebook. “I have so many great memories from here…. My parents would stop in when I was a kid. I loved the place as an adult. Then I moved to California, but I always had a place in my heart for this place. Sad to see it go.”
Second-generation owner Gerald Krystof, son of late founder Bridget “Bridie” Krystof, has not yet responded to a request for more information about the closing.
The longtime bar’s exit signals yet another lost vestige of the neighborhood’s past — an era before the Ricketts family, the owners of the Cubs, launched the huge, slick Hotel Zachary development across from Wrigley Field and helped transform the area into a playground for some of Chicago’s biggest restaurant groups including Boka Restaurant Group (Swift & Sons Tavern) and One Off Hospitality Group (Big Star).
The clock is ticking, but there’s still time: patrons have a week and a half to visit Chicago’s Blarney Stone and say goodbye.
Block Club Chicago first reported news of the closure.