Old Town Pour House to join Naperville restaurant scene
At Old Town Pour House opening July 25 in Naperville, the hometown teams will always be on, the food won't take a back seat to the sports action and even the wine comes on draft.
As the fourth Old Town Pour House to open since 2012, the Naperville location takes the place of the former Zapatista Mexican restaurant at 1703 Freedom Drive.
It specializes in what CEO, co-owner and co-founder Chris Bisaillon calls “handcrafted American contemporary fare” and it offers a 110-seat outdoor patio with a four-sided fireplace, six TVs and a heating system to extend the al fresco dining season.
All in all, Bisaillon describes the pour house as a fun, vibrant place to watch a game and enjoy a meal instead of choosing between one or the other.
“We wanted to build places that we enjoyed being in,” Bisaillon said about the restaurants he has opened with fellow Bottleneck Management co-founders Nathan Hilding and Jason Akemann. “We're avid sports fans; we're avid beer fans. We've always felt in order to watch a Blackhawks playoff game or a Bears game or whatever, you shouldn't have to eat poor quality food.”
So at Old Town, sports fans can savor sandwiches or short ribs, fish tacos or bone-in pork chops, even gourmet burgers hand-pattied with a special spice blend.
On the drinks page are 90 beers on draft, featuring many from Chicago-area breweries such as Revolution Brewing and Half Acre Beer Company in the city and Two Brothers Brewing in Warrenville. Eight draft wines also are becoming increasingly popular at Old Town Pour House's other locations in Chicago, Oak Brook and Maryland, Bisaillon said.
“You're insured that you're getting a high-quality taste,” he said. “If you get a wine by the glass, you don't know when that bottle was opened. With draft wine, it never hits air, so it doesn't oxygenate.”
Old Town Pour House joins a long list of restaurants already open at the Freedom Commons and Freedom Plaza developments just south of I-88. Other recent additions include Fogo de Chao, Uncle Julio's and Granite City Food & Brewery on the property of a new Embassy Suites hotel that opened a year ago.