Today we’d like to introduce you to Chip Brooks and Chris Dungan.
Chip and Chris, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Chip: I was a musician — okay, not a musician, I was a drummer — playing in all kinds of bands during my high school, college and law school years. After that, I spent 36 years as a partner in a downtown Chicago law firm but continued to enjoy live music all over the place. Eventually, I got frustrated that there were no great intimate live music venues in the Northwest suburbs, and I decided to quit the law and try to get a venue going. That became Hey Nonny — the music venue and farm-to-table restaurant that Chris and I opened in Arlington Heights in mid-October.
Chris: In high school, I was a theater geek, which had little to do with the 24 years I spent in the pharmaceutical industry. In 2014, my partners and I sold our pharmaceutical company and I was looking around for my next project. Chip and I had a beer one day and discussed venue ideas, and we decided to work on it together. Weworked for a year and a half to develop Hey Nonny. Early on, we agreed that we wanted a great “listening room” — a place where the music was the focus, not background for conversation.
Chip: But in Arlington Heights, to have a liquor license, you have to serve food. We decided to have a restaurant room that was mostly separate from the music room. That way, eating, and talking could be in one place; listening could be in another room. We decided on a farm-to-table gastropub concept because people love it and there’s nothing like that anywhere in our area.
Chris: And then, to make it really cool, we designed a giant 25-foot retractable wall between the two rooms, so that we can join them if we want to. And we will join them, for our Saturday and Sunday brunches, and for some of our bigger concert events.
Has it been a smooth road?
Chip: We’ve never done any of this — music venue or restaurant — or anything like it. So let’s just say we’ve had a steep learning curve. The two biggest challenges have been people and the complexity of the project.
Chris: The people are the most important part of the game. We’ve ended up with a fantastic staff – our general manager Jaime Braun is high-energy – perfect for our friendly atmosphere. Allison Orr, our venue manager, knows every nook and cranny of the entertainment business. And our Executive Chef, Jay Ruff, has produced a menu that’s really fun, gorgeous, and scrumptious. We’ve got great talent buyers and an excellent sound tech, so our team can’t be beat. In the design process, we also had the benefit of great people getting it open — architects, engineers, acoustical designers, sound system designers, contractors.
Chip: The second challenge has been the complexity of our Hey Nonny project. Even for our very experienced team, very few people have tried to build a fantastic music venue and a brilliant restaurant together all in the same limited space. But it has come together incredibly well — both our audiences and the touring musicians that play here says it is one of the best venues they’ve ever been to.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Hey Nonny story. Tell us more about the business.
Chip: When Chris and I were working on a name for our business, at first we were focusing on the farm-to-table food we planned for the restaurant side. After flailing around with all those farmy names like Back Porch and Rutabaga Bar, Chris blurted out one day: “We’re a music venue. Let’s focus on that.” And he was 100% right. First and foremost, Hey Nonny is a great music venue — a beautiful and friendly place to develop an up close and personal relationship with performing musicians who have the benefit of a great sound system and a gorgeous room.
Chris: There are some very cool intimate “listening rooms” for music in the Chicago area — Schuba’s, the Green Mill, Jazz Showcase, Winter’s, the Hideout, and SPACE, but Hey Nonny has turned out to be sweetest looking and sounding one of the bunch. We’re very lucky that it has come out that well and, fortunately for us, our audiences have appreciated that.
Chip: That said, people have just loved the Hey Nonny food. Our shareables have been really popular – the unusual things like cheese and charcuterie boards, our jars with trout, or tomato, or pork belly spreads, and our incredibly light calamari have been big hits. And we let our customers know about the great Midwest sources of our food, which people really love.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Chris: The live music industry has been booming over the past 10 years, and it will probably continue to thrive. We see our opportunity as bringing great entertainment in cool rooms to towns that have never had it. We think that people are tired of driving for an hour or more each way to get to a great live music spot. Our motto is “Great Music Close to Home.” We’re betting that this will be a trend.
Chip: At least, we hope so!
Pricing:
- Most concerts in our venue have tickets in the $15 to $30 range.
Contact Info:
- Address: 10 S. Vail Ave. Arlington Heights, Illinois 60005
- Website: www.HeyNonny.com
- Phone: 224-202-0750
- Email: contact@HeyNonny.com
- Instagram: @HeyNonnyAH
- Facebook: @HeyNonnyAH
- Twitter: @HeyNonnyAH
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