Confirmed: New BBQ Restaurant - Belly Up - Coming to 1132 S. Wabash

Well looky here - the building at 1132 S. Wabash is having a big week here at Sloopin. Tuesday it was news about a sweet Hebru Brantley mural and today it is confirmation that the building is getting a new BBQ restaurant (via Eater Chicago):

Bellwether owners Nick and George Tsoukalas picked barbecue as the focus for their third restaurant because of a lack of options in the South Loop. Belly Up is the name of the venture, slated to open by the end of the summer at 1132 S. Wabash Ave. Nick Tsoukalas says the restaurant will feature a mixture of Kansas City- and Texas-style barbecue.

As you may recall, back in March we had a tip from a friend of the blog and it appears that it was dead on.

So what do they have in the works:

Besides Porkchop, barbecue picks are slim in the neighborhood. Belly Up will feature ambient country music and would be the brothers' third restaurant — they also own Vinyl in River North. Tsoukalas didn't want to divulge much about the new restaurant's design inside the building shell, as they're still making decisions. They'll work with the existing exposed brick walls, high ceilings and a garage door — which would be left open on warm days. Tsoukalas is guessing they'll have a bar with 15 stools and seating for about 150, plus 25 to 30 more on the sidewalk.

The one thing that was intriguing to us when we heard about this back in March was the prospect of live music.  The Eater Chicago post didn't really address this topic, so we're going to hold out hope.

Regardless, this seems to be a very promising development for the neighborhood and our restaurant/bar scene.  Couple this announcement with the addition of Burger Bar at 1160 S. Michigan and the impending opening of Aurelio's on Roosevelt between Michigan and Wabash it really feels like we have a lot of options at our disposal.

Looking forward to this one!  

(Hat tip: GC & NL!)