50 Yard Line Bar On 75th Street Ordered Closed For ‘Dangerous’ Conditions

GREATER GRAND CROSSING — The 50 Yard Line, a longtime South Side bar known for its stepping lessons and fried meals, has been closed by city officials after failing a building inspection. 

The city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection recently “conducted an investigation” at The 50 Yard Line, 69 E. 75th St., after receiving complaints, department spokesperson Elisa Sledzinska wrote in a statement to Block Club.

Building inspectors issued the closure Saturday after they found nine code violations, including missing carbon monoxide alarms, unsanitary appliances in the kitchen, water puddles, cracked tiles, leaking roof drain pipes and rotted and hanging drop-ceiling tiles, according to the city’s inspection database. 

Owners also “failed to maintain” the business’s roof, and inspectors found water leaks and cracked and rotted rafters, according to the inspection database.  

The 50 Yard will remain closed “until the owner takes the necessary steps to remediate the dangerous and hazardous violations cited by the Department of Buildings, including, but not limited to, the electrical system, roof deficiencies, and unsanitary conditions, which led to its closure,” Nefsa’Hyatt Brown, director of public affairs with the buildings department, said in a statement to Block Club. 

Business Affairs and Consumer Protections fields complaints and launches investigations into businesses, while the Department of Buildings conducts structural inspections. Chicago health inspectors also visited the bar-restaurant July 8, but they did not make entry, records show.

The bar’s owners could not be immediately reached for comment. 

The 50 Yard Line, previously known as Willa’s 50 Yard Line, has been open for decades and is one of several taverns that dots Greater Grand Crossing’s 75th Street corridor. In addition to classic cocktails, the bar is known for its steppers sets and fried food dinners.

In 2023, the bar was one of several along 75th Street issued a Plan of Corrective Action by the city’s business department. Neighbors advocated for local bars, including The 50 Yard Line, to be “good business neighbors” following complaints of rowdy crowds flooding onto nearby blocks and a mass shooting steps away from the bar in 2021 that left a mother of three dead and nine others wounded.