Just across the street from Tribune Tower and underneath Michigan Avenue is the place Sam Sianis made famous – Billy Goat Tavern.
“Two double cheese and a drink and chips…anything else for you today?” customers would often be asked.
In his early days at the Sun-Times, which was also less than a block away, NBC Chicago’s Richard Roeper was a regular.
“For me, when I was coming up at the Sun-Times in the 80s and 90s, this was part of the right of initiation,” Roeper said. “You had to go to the Billy Goat. You wanted to go to the Billy Goat, and Sam was the host of the entire operation.
Sianis was born in 1934, the same year his brother started the restaurant, which was the lunchtime home to Chicagoans from every walk of life, but most famously its journalists.
Sam Sianis, the longtime owner of Chicago’s iconic Billy Goat Tavern, is being remembered for his hospitality and kindness.
Columnist Mike Royko was a regular and so is two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist reporter Ray Long.
“It’s a sad day because Sam is the institution, and Sam made this place great,” Long said. “And all of us in Chicago who know this and know Chicago know that Sam is what it was all about, and we all miss him already.”
But it was a skit from Saturday Night Live that made Sianis famous around the country.
“This place got really famous with the cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger,” said Brisa Lopez, who has worked at Billy Goat Tavern for 24 years. “He was happy about it. He loved cheeseburgers. He would…it was a good thing. It was great.”
Lopez has worked at Billy Goat for more than two decades. She remembers Sam as a sweet and funny man who made everybody feel like they belonged here.
“He said he never was going to retire,” she shared. “He was behind the bar. He would go into the kitchen, help them on the grill, screen the orders, talking to each person at the tables…’Hey, how is your day, how is everything?,’ a very nice person.”
On Friday, two customers – Dakota Chavez and Marilyn Clark – brought their friends to show them what a real Chicago experience is all about.
“This is a place where legends dined and to share that space with them and that little part of history,” Chavez said.
