Lincoln Park Spots Sono Wood Fired and Burger Bar to Close After 10 Years

A pair of longtime restaurants around the corner from the CTA’s North/Clybourn Red Line stop will soon close near Lincoln Park. Sono Wood Fired, a thin-crust pizzeria that’s been open since 2010, should close around the end of the month with ownership converting into a pop-up space, according to ownership’s Facebook post on Saturday. Sono’s owners also run Burger Bar Chicago next door, and that restaurant could close as early as March at 1577 N. Clybourn Avenue, an employee says.

Neither restaurant has a concrete closing date. Everything hinges on redeveloping the property, according to a real estate source. The Loukas family owns the building that previously housed German icon Golden Ox for around eight decades. The family’s interested in building something new across the street from the Red Line station and Lincoln Park’s Apple Store. The building is a relic as new construction surrounds it including the NEWCITY shopping center, which displaced a YMCA.

A Burger Bar employee said the restaurant may close in March, but it might stay open longer. Its owners are looking for short-term leases. The real estate source echoed that, saying the pop-ups are means of keeping the space open as they determine the building’s future.

Burger Bar was one of the first restaurants that readily embraced the emergence of craft beer when it opened a decade ago. A second location opened in 2015 in the South Loop. Workers at both the Lincoln Park and South Loop restaurants said ownership plans to open a new Burger Bar sometime this year in River North, although the exact address hasn’t been confirmed. Ownership also announced plans to open a Sono location in Columbus, Ohio.

Between Burger Bar and Sono, the property is about 8,500 square feet, plus a parking lot for a developer. Sono earned rave reviews over the years for introducing a city obsessed with tavern-cut and deep-dish pizzas to a new style of thin crusts. But now it has plenty of company: Eater Chicago 38 member Pizzeria Bebu is around the corner from the space.