Earlier this summer, I was in the northwest Chicago suburb of Schaumburg for a trade show. Attached to the hotel where the trade show was held was a restaurant where I decided to have lunch at one day. I took a break and sauntered over to City Works located next to the Hyatt Regency hotel.
As I'd never been to City Works before, I found out after the fact that it's part of a 9 location chain. The City Works Eatery and Pour House restaurants are part of the Bottleneck Management Group which got its start in 2001 when college buddies Jason Akemann and Nate Hilding opened Trace, a two-story rock and roll-themed restaurant in Chicago's Wrigleyville neighborhood. Akemann and Hilding ran the business for six years before they decided to expand their holdings with a new restaurant in the Wicker Park area. In order to pull that off, they enlisted the help of another college friend, Chris Bisallion.
Bisallion and Hilding grew up in a small town south of Chicago. They both ended up at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, IL and that's where both met Akemann. After college, Bisallion worked at an investment firm for a number of years working his way up to a regional vice-president. With the company getting ready to expand, Bisallion joined Bottleneck Management in 2007 in charge of site acquisitions. The group then opened the Boundary, a neighborhood sports bar that closed in 2019.
Pictured right - Chris Bisallion, Jason Akemann and Nate Hilding. Photo courtesy Illinois Wesleyan University.
From there Bottleworks Management opened Sweetwater Tavern + Grill along Michigan Ave. in Chicago in 2010. (Many may remember the space as the old Bennigan's restaurant that had a high profile along one of the world's most famous streets.) Other restaurants followed including the 2011 opening of South Branch in the Chicago Loop and Old Town Pour House in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood in 2013. That same year, they opened a second Old Town Pour House location in Oak Brook. Today, there are two other Old Town Pour House locations - one in far west suburban Naperville and another location in Gaithersburg, MD, the groups first foray outside of the state of Illinois.
In 2016, Bottleworks Management opened the first City Works Eatery and Pour House in Minneapolis. The City Works concept beyond what their Old Town Pour House restaurants offered. It offered an upscale sports bar experience with 90 beers on tap - many that were from local breweries in the Twin Cities area. A Philadelphia-area City Works came on line in 2016, while a third one opened near Pittsburgh in 2017. Other City Works Eatery and Pour House locations opened in Doral, FL, Frisco, TX, and Fort Worth, TX. City Works locations opened in Ohio, Florida, and Massachusetts after that.
It wasn't until 2019 when Bottleneck Management brought the City Works concept to the Chicagoland area by opening the City Works in Schaumburg. There are two other City Works Eatery and Pour House locations in the far northern suburbs of Vernon Hills and Wheeling.
The dining area at City Works is a large open space with wooden beams across the ceiling. A long bar with a number of flat-screen television hung on the wall behind the bar showing various sports, but primarily Chicago White Sox baseball that day. A line of booths filled up about half the restaurant while tables and chairs were between the booths and the bar.
They have outside dining at City Works, as well. It looked like a nice area to dine or to hang out in the sun and I was sort of surprised that more people weren't taking advantage of the patio as it was nice weather that day. I did notice that only a couple tables had umbrellas and they weren't open. I would have thought more emphasis would have been placed on putting people on the patio.
Since I was a single diner, I ended up sitting at the bar. I parked myself in front of a large flat screen television with the baseball game on. Three guys were working behind the long bar and it was a flurry of activity going on. Finally, one of the bartenders with the name of Jason came over to greet me and to drop off a food menu. He asked me what to drink and since they had 40 beers on tap, I had to take a minute to digest the beer menu.
The beer list was on the wall on the far end of the restaurant area. It featured a lit board with removable slats with the listed beers where they could easily change out for rotation purposes that was mounted to a decorative stone wall. The majority of the taps are dedicated to local craft beers such as Metropolitan, Two Brothers and Short Fuse Brewing - all three that I have visited or have drank their beers before. In the mood for a hazy IPA that day, I ordered up a Son of Juice hazy from the Maplewood Brewery and Distillery on N. Maplewood in Chicago.
As I checked the menu, I immediately saw that they were in brunch. Well, I didn't want brunch. I wanted a burger or a sandwich or something completely different from the brunch offerings they had . When Jason came over to take my food order, I told him that I wasn't in the mood for brunch and that I'd probably just finish up my beer and go grab lunch some other place. "Wait a minute," he said as he pulled the brunch menu away from me. "Let me see if I can get them to do something off the regular menu for you."
He came back moments later out of the kitchen just off the bar and handed me a regular menu. "Yeah, they said it would be no problem," he said. I was more than impressed that he was able to accommodate me.
And, man, did they have a lot of stuff on the menu to choose from. They had a number of appetizers for single orders or to share with two or more people. City Works also had a large variety of soups and salads for the offering, and they had a good number of burgers and chicken sandwiches to choose from. They had pasta dishes and barbecued ribs on the menu, along with main entrées such as a bone-in center-cut pork chop, a peppercorn-crusted rare ahi tuna steak, and a grilled chicken breast served with a mix of white rice, andouille sausage and succotash with a creole butter/chile oil mixture. They also had a few vegetarian options on the menu, something that I had suddenly been keen on seeing on menus because I work with a guy who is a vegetarian.
The ahi tuna steak sounded really good, but then I saw the tacos section. City Works had Chicken Tinga tacos, brisket tacos, barbecued pulled pork tacos, mahi mahi (albeit battered) tacos, and spicy shrimp tacos. But the one that jumped out at me were the ahi tuna tacos. I figured that these would tie me over until dinner that night where I was going to have a good ol' thin-crust REAL Chicago-style tavern pizza.
The soft flour tacos were filled with poké-style ahi tuna and topped with an asian slaw mixture with pickled green chiles, chopped cilantro and served with a sesame ginger vinaigrette that had a cool, yet spicy bite to it. The ahi tuna tacos were simply outstanding. There were so many taste variations going on that I swear I must have said, "Mmmmm...." with nearly each bite I took of the tacos. The homemade crispy tortilla chips on the side were more for decoration for me as I concentrated on the wonderful ahi tuna tacos.
When Jason asked me how the tacos were, I had my mouth somewhat full and I gave him the thumbs up. He was still in front of me when I swallowed my bite and before I took my next bite, I said, "These are a spot-hitter!"
About the only sour aspect of my visit to City Works was this note at the bottom of my ticket: "Due to increased costs of operations, a 3% surcharge has been added to all checks. This charge may be removed from dining room checks upon your request." Look, I understand that profit margins in restaurants can be razor thin. Alcohol is definitely a profit center for many of these restaurants while food costs continue to rise. And I suppose that the 3% surcharge is cheaper than reprinting about 150 menus with higher food prices. Still, I just see it as another sneaky fee - like credit card surcharges that are popping up all over the place - that restaurants are starting to implement. I liken it to a baggage fee that airlines charge passengers.
With all that said - I didn't ask for the charge to be removed.
Even knowing now that City Works is a small chain, I would have no problem heading back in for another meal if I were to find one in my travels. The food selection was varied and interesting, the ahi tuna tacos that I had on this visit were outstanding, and the beer selection was top-notch. And I have to give my bartender/server Jason a shout out for allowing me to order off the regular menu as they were in the midst of brunch and I didn't want brunch. City Works was a pleasant find in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago.
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