Big Chill
Big Chill
The one thing that the early days of the downtown revitalization lacked were new places where one could have a cocktail and get good food at 2:00 a.m., something anyone working at the other restaurants in the area often sought.
If you worked in those industries downtown in 1997, the opening of The Big Chill was a sight for weary eyed service types wearing polyester pants and a button down shirt.
Desperate for a place to go with their co-workers, have a drink and share the nightmare stories of dinner service, The Chill became a fixture of that scene and the nightlife scene as a whole.
Scottie Bowman opened The Big Chill 15 years ago and made a big bet on Jacks Alley. With its signature frozen drink machines spinning gently and constantly behind the bar, enticing you with a refreshing and potentially inebriating spectacle, it established itself as a unique fixture of our downtown. The Big Chill also quickly became, and still is, one of the melting pots of our city. Younger, older, gay, straight, blue collar, all are welcome and all come for the same reasons...good drinks, service and one of the best late night menus in the city. That, friends, is a very important establishment for a city to have.
Cheers to Scottie and The Big Chill for being an early adopter and a place of fun and refuge for 15 years.