A little slice of Cheeseland in Lakeview

A little slice of Cheeseland in Lakeview
Steve Johnson Tribune reporter

11:06 a.m. CST, January 21, 2011
Step into Will's Northwoods Inn on these quiet afternoons before the big day and you're as likely to meet a news crew as you are a Green Bay Packers fan.

It's known far, wide and on Google as the top Packers bar in Chicago, a place where transplants from the north can grab some deep-fried cheese curds and a bratwurst, and tear up at the mention of Vince Lombardi's name, all under the unflinching gaze of wall-mounted moose and muskies.


Bartender Jen Ziel answers phones at Will's Northwoods Inn on the north side of Chicago. Because the upcoming Bears-Packers game will crowd the bar, she has had to tell patrons they aren't taking reservations for tables. (Alex Garcia/ Chicago Tribune)

Will's, for two decades tucked into the Lakeview neighborhood at 3030 N. Racine Ave., has been especially prominent this week, as the Packers prepare to face Chicago's Bears Sunday for the right to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl.

This confluence — Wisconsin bar in deepest Chicago, plus the first playoff game since 1941 between the two longtime rivals — is what is known in the news trade as a can't-miss feature story.

"Look at this place," says owner Jon Bunge, 74, a native of Lacrosse who came south to make his mark as a corporate lawyer. "This isn't the United Center. It's a neighborhood bar, and all of a sudden, the phone's jumping off the hook."

"Just when I thought I had done every station possible, a new one comes in," says Kevin Kruse, the bar's manager. "You mean we didn't do Fox-Milwaukee?"

When I arrive, local journalism students already have a camera set up in the back room. As I'm talking to Kruse, a reporter and cameraman from a Green Bay TV station show up. A few minutes later, up on the wall, on ESPN, there's injured Packers tight end Jermichael Finley telling all of America he'll be watching the game at Will's.

Kruse shakes his head at that one, amazed that Finley mentioned them and clarifying that the player will actually be the (paid) guest of honor at the bar's Packers party the night before.

If he were to come for the game itself, "he wouldn't be comfortable, trust me," says Kruse. "It's been like a circus. It's crazy," says Kruse. "It's something that I've been praying for and fearing all at once these past few years. and now that it's here, we're fearing it more than anything," Kruse says.

It's true.

What the TV features don't mention is that all this publicity has Kruse, Bunge and their staff mostly worried: worried that their regulars, including retired Packers center Frank Winters, won't get seats on Sunday and worried that the spillover outside will cause problems for the neighbors, worried about the number of people who've called to tell them they're driving down from Wisconsin to watch the game there.

"We've done nothing for the whole week except talk about how we're going to make sure we don't have a problem," Bunge says. "I'll be very happy when this weekend goes," Bunge says. "It doesn't make a difference how the game comes out. I just want to get through this."

With all the media types around, it's not easy to find a real person. Then Jim Meyers, a contractor who lives in the neighborhood, sits at the bar, waiting for lunch.

"It's an awesome place," he says, an endorsement from a die-hard Bears fan. "But it's been just nuts lately. Last Sunday, I came in just to say hi, and it was so crowded, I had to hide behind the bar."

Bryce Lehman walks in wearing the No. 80 of his favorite Packer, wide receiver Donald Driver.

"This is my home away from home," says the 29 year old law student, a Racine native. "I bring friends from Wisconsin here, and they can't shut up about the place."

Will's came into being because Bunge started buying buildings in the area for tax purposes in the 1980s, including the 3030 building in 1987. The tenant was Eski Palmer, and his Palmer's Pub wasn't doing so well in the space, despite what Bunge calls "a really good lease for him, lousy for us."

When Palmer asked Bunge if he wanted to take over, the owner consulted people in the bar business who told him he'd have to do a six-figure rehab to make a go of the place.

But Bunge looked at the wood paneling on the walls and the long wooden bar and remembered old Leinenkugel's billboards and local pubs from up near Hayward, where his family vacationed.

"We bought that moose head," he says. "We bought those two stuffed muskies over the bar. We said, 'Okay, this is a north woods bar.'"

The original idea was that one of the front rooms would be for Packers fans, one for Bears. But the Bears teams weren't so good back in the early 1990s, and the Wisconsin ambience was so strong that it won out.

Now the place is not only Packers central but also a preeminent University of Wisconsin bar, as well. Kruse, whose father had been a bartender at Palmer's and stayed on when it converted to Will's, took over as manager five years ago, and he opened the kitchen with the Cubs season in 2009, and it serves a better grade of bar food, including a nod to the north with deep-fried cheese curds and a beer-soaked bratwurst, laden with sauerkraut.

It's been noticed by national media before -- the Wall Street Journal did a write-up on Big Ten bars, Kruse recalls — but nothing like this week. To handle the expected crush on Sunday, the plan is simple: Open at 9:30, and the regulars' spots will be held for them for an hour. The crowd will be standing-room-only, and true Wisconsinites, Bunge figures, won't mind standing in the tent over the beer garden, near one of the pit heaters.

And, hey, maybe that new guy at the bar is one of the regulars. Nope. He's with the Sun-Times.

sajohnson@tribune.com