Rick Kogan: FitzGerald’s may soon be a landmark — something Chicago music fans already knew

CHICAGO — Sady, I am not old enough to have sampled the delights of Club Ritz, with its “Come Early and Stay Until ??” in 1934 and listened to the “Gay Tunes of Jack Lyon and his Club Ritz Orchestra.” I couldn’t tell you what went on the next year at Club Whitehall where one could “Dine, Dance and Relax.” And sorry, never made it in later years to Ranucci’s Night Spot for “Fun Galore,” The Hunt Club for what was called “Xmas Music Salty Dog Style,” Club El Monaco or the Deer Lodge for a game of pool.

These are all names of ghosts, the names of nightclubs and taverns that once operated at 6615 W. Roosevelt Road in Berwyn. But for the past 40-some years, this area of land has been home to FitzGerald’s, one of the great and most active music venues in the country and known across the globe.

That is where I was sitting one recent afternoon, in an office with Will Duncan and Jessica King, a charming couple who own the place.

He is a native of the Washington, D.C., suburbs and has had a long history in the food and entertainment businesses, most recently as the general manager of Longman & Eagle and director of operations for the Promontory, Thalia Hall and Punch House in Chicago. She is a native of Brookfield and a former high school teacher and principal. They met through King’s sister, when she was working at Longman & Eagle, and they married in 2015.

Before either of them was born, Bill FitzGerald, a house painter and music enthusiast, his brother Chris and their late father Chris Sr. opened FitzGerald’s in 1980. None of them had operated a nightclub or tavern before. They paid about $50,000 for what was a rundown Deer Lodge. They spent eight months getting the place in shape and then began a run that will ever be considered among the most distinctively successful in this entertainment area’s history.

The FitzGerald’s property in Berwyn would expand to Capri Ristorante, 6613 W. Roosevelt, the main club, 6615 W. Roosevelt, and the Sidebar, 1207 Clarence Ave. The restaurant and Sidebar became part of the business in 2001.

It was put on the market in 2017, as the family searched for the right person who would understand the club on an emotional and not merely commercial level.

They found Duncan and papers were signed in March 2020 and Duncan took over at what quickly became a wicked time, only days before COVID-19 shut down our world. With free time on their hands — what free time they were able to manage while raising two little boys, Stanley-Jack and Charlie — they began to explore the place’s history, spending many hours digging through dusty files and faded newspapers at the Berwyn Public Library and Berwyn Historical Society.

“I would find something interesting almost every day,” King said.

As soon as she began posting some of her discoveries on social media, “We started to get all sorts of interesting things from people,” she said. “Photos, cards and most important and moving of all, memories.”

Now there are many places of a certain age that have interesting histories. Sometimes, when I am lucky enough to bump into Steve Lombardo at Gibsons, one of the many restaurants that are part of his family’s Gibsons Restaurant Group, our conversation will become peppered with the names of bygone Rush Street businesses and bars we remember. Gibsons was, in a previous life, the popular restaurant Sweetwater and before that it was Mister Kelly’s, one of the most famous nightclubs in the country.

And whenever I am on the Near South Side, I will drive by the Urban Beautique outpost at 315 E. 35th St. I listen closely and use my imagination in an attempt to travel back through the years to when it was a hardware store and into the time before that when it was a place called the Sunset Cafe (aka Grand Terrace Cafe) where Louis Armstrong once played.

So successful and enlightening was King’s research and the stories she was hearing that she was empowered to make what is called a preliminary application to the State of Illinois Historic Preservation Agency to have FitzGerald’s named a historic landmark. After some months of what she and her husband called “anxious waiting,” they were informed that FitzGerald’s was worthy of historical landmark designation.

“That was the first step but we were thrilled,” King said. “Then we had to keep working to make it to the next level.”

In order to get there, they began working with architect and historical consultant Douglas Gilbert. “This has been such a fun project,” said Gilbert, who is also working on the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bagley House in Hinsdale.

He said, “Will and Jessica, they are super nice, smart and enthusiastic. I think we will be able to soon make the formal proposal to submit on the federal level. It’s likely there will be a vote sometime between June and October and we will be there, confidently.”

And will that mean?

“There are certain tax benefits that could be available if they decided to do work on the buildings but that’s not what is motivating these two,” he says.

What compels them is something deeper.

Duncan remembers first visiting FitzGerald’s nearly two decades ago to see singer-songwriter Deke Dickerson. “I loved the place right away,” he said. “And by now I think I have a pretty good sense of the community, the legacy. It’s important to keep that, to value it. Sure things will evolve but there’s no hurry.”

They were both encouraged that, while closed during the pandemic, they were awash in offers of help from neighbors and fans. They responded with a “Stay at Home” concert series, with a truck traveling through neighborhoods providing music. Their outdoor space enabled them to offer more music and events.

Now, with things back to the new normal, Duncan is filled with ideas, mentioning family events, upcoming shows and saying, with a wide smile, “I think we will be around for many, many years.”

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(Rick Kogan is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.)

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