Are you a real sports fan? One who, when faced with a dearth of major televised sports, gladly turns to professional lumberjacking? Do you care about the Expos and Diamondbacks? If so, this is the place for you.
It's about time Chicago got another entertainment complex to accent our evenings at the Rainforest Cafe, Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood. ESPN Zone is coming to Chicago, and it's got an angle: Instead of Ontario Street, it's on Ohio!
Press types got to walk through the still-in-progress ESPN Zone, the second to opened by the Every Sport Possible Network (the first is in Baltimore). Slated to open July 10 (when the Cubs and Sox take their crosstown rivalry to Comiskey), Chicago's ESPN Zone is the first of two new Zones scheduled to open this summer; number two will be in Times Square.
Yes sir, another sports bar. But this isn't just any sports bar, it's a blanket of sports obsession. Think four ESPN Channels (ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN News, Classic Sports) provide sports overload? Enter the Zone's atrium, a monitor-filled circle of sports orgy. Of course, you'll see ESPN, and only ESPN.
The Zone is divided into three parts: the Studio Grill, the Screening Room, the Sports Arena. If you aren't into sports, you're in the wrong place.
The Studio Grill, ESPN's marketing guy Scott Dickey stresses, "is about a great meal." Corners of the Studio Grill replicate ESPN television show sets. They're all here, from SportsCenter to NFL Primetime. (ESPN will eventually broadcast from these.) The En Fuego kitchen promises "upscale American grill fare" after all, nothing screams sports like Cedar Plank salmon.
Upstairs, the Screening Room resembles a mini stadium where you can sit facing a wall of TV monitors, highlighted by a big screen. You can even get the sound for your particular game piped directly to your table. And there are two skyboxes, glass-enclosed rooms for the elite sports fans (available for "about $50 per hour").
Bored with just watching sports? Hustle over to the Sports Arena, a circus of video games, skill contests and even a climbing wall. Look up. Notice the monitors above.
Though no food from the Studio Grill will be allowed in the game room, Dickey relates that limited snacks and beverages will be available. "Soda, juices, and what else Rob?" he asks the Zone's Director of Operations Rob Perez. "Smoothies!" declares Perez. Well all right!
Gotta pee during a critical point in that Nuggets-Mavericks game? The Zone's got your back : televisions in the bathrooms - on the ceiling, above the urinals, in the stalls.
Here's a fun game: get a table near the bathrooms. Make bets with your friends as to who will come out of the bathrooms with visible wet stains on their pants. After all, there has to be a reason why no one put monitors above the urinals before. (Dave Chamberlain)
copyright 1999 New City Communications, Inc.