The side door is a significant feature of a house’s construction and security. The front door is the filter, the first line of defense. No one who has never been to your house before is going to just walk around to a side door. If you’re family, you always come in the side door or the back door, not the front door. The side door is for frequent visitors. You still have to wipe your feet when you come in, but you have the wonderful opportunity to surprise your hosts. They see you coming down the driveway and wonder who the hell is that in my yard? Then you pop in the back door and are greeted by a cold beer and a hey howya doin.
That’s the feeling you get when you walk into Ziggy’s Side Door Pub & Deli. It’s homely, mostly because it has no other choice to be a cavernous tavernous hole in the wall. The entrance to the bar is quite literally a side-door. The front of the bar is an actual deli. I’ve never ordered anything from the deli, but judging by the amount of guys I see come in for a liquid lunch with sausage and sauerkraut on the side, the food must be pretty damn good.
It’s a Polish bar with Polish owners. If the name Ziggy’s wasn’t a dead give-away (often short for Zbigniew or Zygmund), the location and the décor sure scream zimne piwo. Right off a 2-lane, slowed down section of 63rd Street just west of Midway Airport, Ziggy’s is in a neighborhood where each of the Catholic Churches around have a few masses in Polish every Sunday. It’s right down the street from the Karolina Polka Club, as well as the New Warsaw Restaurant & Banquets (not to be confused with the Old Warsaw Polish Smorgasboard on Cermak).
Beer? Check. Chips? Check. Commemorative Ziggy’s sweatshirt? CHECK-A-ROONEY!
You sit down, you order an MGD, a bag a chips, and a Ziggy’s crewneck sweatshirt, and you’re good to go. They automatically give you a little 8 oz pilsner glass with your bottle of beer. That’s such a classic move. I have no idea in the world why beer glasses so small in volume were invented, but I’m glad they were. You feel like you’re slugging them down like Andre the Giant because you’ve refilled your glass 12 times in the last 20 minutes, but really you’ve had a beer and a half.
Then you really feel like a giant because an attack of claustrophobia hits you, because you realize Ziggy’s is about as big as your college dorm room. And ¼ of that space is taken up by a stage. Full drum set. Mic stands. Guitar. And a cage. A god damned cage. Judging by what I see on their Facebook page, Ziggy’s gets lit after dark. Cover bands. Karaoke. POLKA BANDS! Could you imagine an oompah band in tight quarters and a buncha Poles doing the polka? I really feel like I am missing out. Having never been to Ziggy’s after 3:00pm is a fact I’m ashamed to admit is true.
Zig’s is a must stop on any tour of Midway bars. It was true then, it’s true now. Then was Synopalooza. Now is an annual stop on the Friday during the opening week of March Madness.
T-Bone & Syno throwin’ up the 4’s at Synopalooza 2
Ziggy’s was always stop #4 or #5 on Synopalooza, the famous 27 bar-bar crawl down 63rd St. and then up Archer Ave. We’d start a mile away at Grand Dukes on 63rd & Harlem, so by the time we always got to Ziggy’s, that train was rolling full steam ahead. I would know, since I had the distinct privilege of keeping that flying umbrella on pace and on course. Official Synopalooza Referee is a big responsibility. Do you realize how fast you have to go to hit 27 bars in one day? Even if you were at a pace of 2.5 bph, you wouldn’t finish by 10pm. Combine that with the fact that it was mandated you have a drink at every bar, and we walked 75% of the eight mile route, and you too would run that gauntlet with a full heart, and a fully charged air horn. We’d done 3 bars in an hour and five minutes, and Ziggy’s was always where it all started getting turnt. We’d come in like a bat outta hell, Meatloaf style. The wonderful bar ladies and regulars tolerated our 20 minute hootenanny, and just like that we were gone. But everything I’ve described previously made the annual trip a vignette into a place like no other.
Someone has got to make sure the train is running on time
And that’s brought me back. Sometimes a stop here and there, but the last few years I’ve found myself there in the early afternoon on the first weekend of March Madness. I always make that vacation request in October. The first four days of the tournament are the best sports days of the year. But I digress.
So the past coupla times I’ve stopped into Ziggy’s on Tournament Opening Weekend, I’ve ran into this fella by the name of Larry. I think. Maybe it was Tony. Or Ron. Anyway, he’s Polish. He grew up in the neighborhood, and actually went to Fenwick High School just like I did. So we’d chat about this and that, the brothers and the cafeteria and the pranks. He told me he was a bit of a smartass back in the day, especially when he had an audience in class. So one day, he was acting up in gym class, and Coach Tony Lawless decided he was gonna find a way to shut him up. That was by making him lace ‘em up against some kids from the West Side and join golden gloves. He told me he got the absolute piss knocked out of him three or four times, but, he learned to watch his mouth. Or at least to be more selective about it. That lesson really helped him when he was fighting for his life in Vietnam in the Army. But that was all years ago. Now he’s retired from his blue collar career, and here to have a couple beers, and pick up some golumpki from the deli to bring home to his wife.
I hope to see Ron again this March. Or Larry, or Tony. And I’ll use the side door. Because that’s reserved for good neighbors and family. Just like Ziggy’s.
Jake Berent 
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