How One of Chicago’s Most Ambitious Restaurant Projects Arrived in Wrigleyville

The Hotel Zachary has finally opened across the street from Wrigley Field, a massive development that’s attempting to redefine Lakeview with a bevy of new dining and drinking options. Gone is the McDonald’s at the corner of Clark and Addison and its place there’s a 173-room boutique hotel with a new McDonald’s along with restaurants from some of Chicago’s largest restaurant companies headlined by popular taco bar Big Star and Mordecai, a spin-off of one of the city’s best cocktail bars, Billy Sunday.

All but one of the Zachary’s restaurants have opened as the Cubs have started the 2018 baseball season. Boka Restaurant Group plans to open Dutch & Doc’s later this spring in the same building, although officially not part of the hotel. The Boka project may be the only one that would require a reservation. It’s first come, first serve, even on Cubs game days.

The Ricketts family pushed to redevelop the area and to create even more synergy with the baseball team they’ve owned since 2009. Wrigleyville’s bar scene is cutthroat when it comes to competition for fans’ pre- and postgame dollars.

Keep up with the project below and see if there are aftershocks felt by the bars and restaurants that helped make Wrigleyville.