LAKEVIEW — The Pig is back.
Pork-focused restaurant The Piggery plans to reopen next month, more than a year after part of its building was destroyed by a fire, co-owner Terry Lyons said.
The restaurant, 1625 W. Irving Park Road, shut down last February after a fire in the basement's laundry room. Insurance investigators never figured out the exact cause of the fire, Lyons said.
The sports-themed restaurant had been open for two years.
"We had a really good crowd going when the fire came," Lyons said. "We had the fire right before [the NCAA basketball tournament]. It was a real drag."
Now, Lyons and partners Dave Friedrich and Ken Pospiech are ready to open up the sports-themed restaurant again — with ambitions to expand the menu, host wedding receptions and add a rooftop deck.
The menu will still largely celebrate the pig, but a new traditional pizza oven means The Piggery will also be offering more pie options.
Before the end of the year, the partners plan to tear down the east building and replace it with a four-story building. Apartments will fill the top two floors, and a banquet hall for events and expanded seating will take up the bottom two floors.
Meanwhile, the west building will be the first area to open and will remain one floor so that a rooftop bar overlooking Irving Park will be built on top of it, Lyons said. The crew hopes the bar patio will be ready for next summer.
"We’re just excited to get back rolling," he said.
For anybody questioning The Piggery's enthusiasm, look to YouTube. The restaurant announced its impending return to Facebook fans with a nearly three-minute-long video of the Harlem Shake, filmed in the construction site.
"I've had nothing to do for a year," Lyons said, "so I have tons of energy."
