USA, IL: Guinness to launch a restaurant, pub and brewery in Chicago’s Fulton Market neighborhood
The legendary Irish beer brand Guinness said on September 21 it will launch a restaurant, pub and brewery in Chicago’s Fulton Market neighborhood in early 2023, “hopefully in time for St. Patrick’s Day,” said Jay Sethi, chief marketing officer of Guinness’ parent company, Diageo Beer Co., a subsidiary of global spirits giant Diageo.
The 15,000-square-foot operation, in a long-empty former railroad depot at 375 N. Morgan St., will feature an array of beers made on-site, as well as Guinness’ iconic dry Irish stout imported from Dublin, plus “Irish pub food you’d expect from Guinness,” Sethi said. He said the company hopes the pub will reflect Chicago neighborhoods in its food and beer by collaborating with local chefs and brewers, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The pub, whose formal name will be announced in the coming months, will be a second U.S. location for the 262-year-old beer brand best known for its Guinness Draught, with an impenetrably black color that belies its easy-drinking, roasty nature at 4.2% alcohol. Guinness opened a production brewery outside Baltimore in 2017 that opened to the public a year later.
The Chicago operation will be far smaller, with a 10-barrel brewing system in a neighborhood rife with trendy restaurants and hotels that is popular with tourists, the post-work crowd and suburbanites visiting the city.
Sethi said it is too soon to discuss beers that will be made there, but if Guinness’ Maryland location is an indication, it will include familiar styles including India pale ale, blonde ale and milk stout. Sethi said that brewery has made more than 250 beers and manufactures Baltimore Blonde, a blonde ale sold in the Northeast.
The Chicago location is a next step in Guinness’ bid to be more active in the U.S. beer market.
“This isn’t trying to be a local neighborhood pub,” Sethi said. “We recognize that we’re big, international beer. What we’re trying to do is create a special environment that has a little bit of a feel of Guinness and what you might expect from an Irish establishment, but at the same time also has some great local food and beer.”
Sethi said Guinness was drawn to Chicago in part because the city is second-largest market for Guinness Draught. The size of the city was also a draw, he said.
In 2018, Constellation Brands, the then-corporate parent of San Diego’s Ballast Point Brewing, launched a pub less than a half-mile from the future Guinness location, citing the marketing value of a pub in a city in the center of the country that draws waves of tourists.
The Ballast Point pub never seemed to catch on, however, and after what was deemed a temporary closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic last year, Ballast Point’s current owner announced in March the pub would close for good.
The Guinness pub will be even larger that the nearby former Ballast Point location, but its planning comes in a markedly different context. When it opened in Chicago, Ballast Point was scrambling for relevancy, especially outside its home market, after a $1 billion sale in 2015 to Constellation Brands.
Guinness sales in stores tracked by Chicago-based market research firm IRI, which include grocery, drug, convenience and big-box stores, have been up nearly 12% during the last year, even as many large beer brands struggle amid fractured consumer tastes and the rise of hard seltzer.
“We’ve been growing by being a bigger brand both at a national level through some of the moves we’ve made with our partnerships in sports, but also being a more local brand,” Sethi said. “Our success in Baltimore made us think this is something we want to do more of. Chicago is the next big bet for us.”
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