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Hey! Hey! Brickhouse Restaurant Coming To Park At Wrigley

By Ariel Cheung | April 7, 2017 8:36am
 Jack Brickhouse in the Comiskey Park press box as he prepares to announce a White Sox game in 1948
Jack Brickhouse in the Comiskey Park press box as he prepares to announce a White Sox game in 1948
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WRIGLEY FIELD — A tavern-style restaurant carrying the same name of one of Chicago's greatest sportscasters will open outside Wrigley Field this summer.

Brickhouse — as in Jack Brickhouse — will take up two stories of the office building anchoring the Park at Wrigley complex, which includes the triangle-shaped plaza outside the ballpark.

The restaurant will have outdoor and terrace seating. Four Corners Tavern Group will operate Brickhouse, adding it to its roster of eateries that includes Schoolyard Tavern & Grill in Lakeview and Ranalli's in Lincoln Park.

Brickhouse will join a rare Starbucks Reserve, which serves $10 cups of small-batch nitro cold brews and other exotic blends, inside the Park at Wrigley.

Across the street, Big Star and Smoke Daddy BBQ will open inside Hotel Zachary.

Jack Brickhouse was known for his calls of "Hey Hey!" when a Cub hit a homer, before Harry Caray's cry of "Holy Cow!" during Cubs games.

The Wrigley Field plaza and its adjacent office building, seen here in late February, will be home to a two-story restaurant called Brickhouse. [DNAinfo/Ariel Cheung]

The first face shown on WGN-TV in 1948, Brickhouse spent over 40 years as a Chicago broadcaster, both on radio and television. He was the announcer for the Chicago Cubs from 1948 to 1981, when Caray replaced him, and also called games for the White Sox, Bears and Bulls during various stints in his career.

Brickhouse grew up in Downstate Peoria where his mother worked in a hotel after his father died when Brickhouse was 2 years old.

He got his start in radio in the 1930s at 18 years old — the youngest broadcaster in the nation. After an internship in New York that his wife said was "the worst year of his life," Brickhouse came to Chicago "and never wanted to leave."

"No. 1, they have the greatest sports fans in the nation, and No. 2, he just felt they were the most wonderful, friendly people on earth," his wife, Pat Brickhouse, told DNAinfo Chicago.

While Brickhouse, who died in 1998, spent 24 consecutive seasons announcing for the Bears and was the first voice of the Chicago Bulls, his primary love was baseball, his wife said.

For Brickhouse, the "highest honor" was receiving the 1983 Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame, his wife said.

A statue of him also stands on Michigan Avenue near the Tribune Tower.

Through it all, though, Brickhouse remained humble.

"He never refused an autograph. He was friendly to everyone, and he was very low-key. That's one of the reasons fans still remember him," she said.

"He never did it for the money. He did it for the love of the game."

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The Cubs and Wrigley Field are 95 percent owned by an entity controlled by a trust established for the benefit of the family of Joe Ricketts, owner and CEO of DNAinfo.com. Joe Ricketts has no direct involvement in the management of the iconic team.