Boka Replacing Wrigleyville Restaurant With Oyster Bar

The changes around Wrigleyville continue as Dutch & Doc’s, Boka Restaurant Group’s post across the street from Wrigley Field, will be rebranded. Boka will install a new 30-foot bar on the first floor and dub the space next to the Hotel Zachary as the second location of Swift & Sons, the company’s Fulton Market steakhouse and oyster bar. The new restaurant will be more casual than the Fulton Market iteration and be called Swift & Sons Tavern & Oyster Bar.

Sunday will be Dutch & Doc’s last day, while Swift & Sons in Wrigleyville should open on March 6. The transition should be smooth as chef Chris Pandel (Cira) opened Swift & Sons and Dutch & Doc’s. Since November, Dutch & Doc’s has seemingly been treated a little like a utility player, slotting into a few roles for Boka. At first, the space hosted a pop-up for Balena, giving customers a chance to say goodbye to the Lincoln Park restaurant which burned down in 2017. Since January, the space has hosted a pop-up for Momotaro chef Gene Kato. Later this year, Boka hope to open Momotaro Italia, a restaurant that mashes Italian and Japanese food. The group has yet to provide details on that project.

Boka took customer feedback and decided they’d have more success with more of a tavern atmosphere. A rep added that having an established brand in the neighborhood would also be beneficial to business. Swift & Sons, an upscale steakhouse, opened in 2015. At the time it was the company’s most lavish restaurant. The feel will be different — more unbuttoned — in Wrigleyville for the post- and pregame crowd. Staff will shuck oysters behind the new bar. That bar will be the only alteration to the decor, according to a rep. The baseball theme will remain intact.

New dishes include shrimp or oysters po boys, and a steak sandwich made with an 8-ounce dry-aged ribeye. Seafood options include a Creole crab salad, crispy rock shrimp, and chargrilled oysters. Boka beverage director Lee Zaremba will add palomas, Negronis, and a frozen mojito to the drink list.

It’s been two years since Hotel Zachary opened across the stadium, signifying a wave of changes to the neighborhood. Dutch & Doc’s opened in May 2018, and provided some fan service for Boka founders Rob Katz and Kevin Boehm, two of the city’s biggest Cubs supporters. Reviews for Dutch & Doc’s had been mixed. The restaurant needed to cater to fans, neighborhood families, and diners who have high expectations for a Boka restaurant. Last year, the group won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur.

It’s another change for Clark and Addison. Maddon’s Post remains empty after the restaurant named for former Cubs manager Joe Maddon closed in late December. This week, Maddon, for his part, told a reporter that he felt the restaurant would have remained open if he remained the Cubs’s skipper — he’s now with the Los Angeles Angels. Maddon’s former restaurant was managed by Levy Restaurants and owned by Hickory Capital, which is owned by the Ricketts family (who, as fans know, own the Cubs). When announcing the closure, a spokesperson for ownership said it was open to fill the space with a non-restaurant tenant.

There’s about five weeks until the start of baseball season; the Cubs home opener is on March 30. The Tribune first reported the story.

Swift & Sons Tavern & Oyster Bar, 3600 N. Clark Street, scheduled for a March 6 opening.