Bass: Welcome to the Jungle annex, a Chicago bar for displaced Bengals fans

CHICAGO – She surprised me.

I had lost my bearings and was about to turn into a bar, thinking I had finally found the right one when a woman passed me on the sidewalk and called back to me.

“Who Dey!” she said.

I turned my head, forgetting for a split second that I was wearing a Bengals hat, then returned to reality.

“Who Dey!” I replied.

Yep, this was the right place.

* * * * *

I wanted to watch a Bengals game surrounded by other Bengals fans.

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The Bengals were playing Kansas City in the biggest game of the season, and I’d heard Woodie’s Flat was the biggest Bengals bar in Chicagoland.

My son wanted to come with. (A Chicago-ism.) Like me, Adam grew into his Bengaldom after leaving Cincinnati, while living in Chicago, while watching the magical run from afar last season. Like me, Adam was wearing a Bengals hat.

His wife, Sara, wanted to come with, too. I was thrilled they were there. The Snoopy sweatshirt she wore touted the hometown Bears, who were losing the early game. She is not a big sports fan so that was her only football garb. That day was a football celebration; she liked being where people get into the excitement of the entertainment.

I got it. It was the energy.

That was what I was missing.

Being at the Thursday night game Sept. 29 against the Miami Dolphins in Cincinnati was great, but otherwise, I saw one Bengals game at an all-purpose sports bar, saw some others at home and followed the rest on social media, “NFL RedZone” or radio.

I wanted to feed off the passion of real-life Bengals fans. The cheering and Bengal Growling and Who Dey-ing and bonding could raise more of that “we” feeling.

I wanted to feel more connected.

This is a common lament of the displaced fan.

We crave a home away from our home team.

* * * * *

Woodie’s Flat was supposed to be a Browns bar, a potential fit for an Ohio sports bar that was especially popular for Ohio State football but needed an NFL niche.

General manager Shawn Gibala tried to arrange for Woodie’s to land the big overflow of Cleveland backers unable to fit into the established Browns bar. Instead, he ended up with about 20 for each game.

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This brings us to Stephenson Swan.

When the St. Xavier graduate from Anderson Township moved to the area from Boston, he came into Woodie’s one day. Gibala asked if he needed a TV tuned to a game, comped him a drink and began a friendship that would change both of their lives.

Swan would support Woodie’s during the pandemic.

He would come weekly for wings.

He would tease Gibala about the Baker Mayfield fathead in the window. Swan bought him a Joe Burrow fathead to hang up, too – this IS an Ohio bar – and urged him to show Bengals games. Swan didn’t want to push too hard for the Bengals, knowing their past track record, but after a month or so, there still was no sign of Burrow's fathead. Swan asked why. Gibala told him he was working on something.

Woodie’s would officially become a Bengals bar.

Swan talked to his Bengals friends about switching to a different bar. Word spread. Gibala wanted to start slowly, committing one of the three floors for a preseason game. Bengals fans just about filled up that floor. Gibala, ever the showman, raffled off chances to cut off parts of the Mayfield fathead but left the head for Swan.

The season started, and Bengals patrons multiplied, taking up more floors before filling the place with hundreds of fans for a Thursday night game. The Bengals were in a magical season, perfectly timed for Woodie’s.

“I don’t think you could have scripted it any better,” Gibala said. “I had no idea what to expect. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. My son, because of this, has a Ja’Marr Chase jersey.”

And Gibala, a 50-year-old Bears fan and current season ticket holder, adopted the Bengals, too. When people question his motives, he talks of what he sees in Bengals fans that he never saw in Bears fans. He said Bears fans are always angry at the team, win or lose, and act more like individuals than a village.

“I fell in love with the community atmosphere I never got as a Bears fan,” he said.

A Super Bowl run of a lifetime also helped. Swan cherished sharing game days at Woodie’s with childhood pal Kyle Swanson, who also relocated to Chicago, for the type of season that only happened back home before they were born.

In March, Kyle Swanson died unexpectedly.

“Kyle was buried in a Reds hat and Joe Burrow jersey,” Swan, 29, said. “I’m thankful to look back on last season and the positive memories of the best season in Cincinnati sports in either of our lives.”

When a fundraiser was held in Cincinnati for the Kyle Swanson Legacy Fund, Gibala agreed to hold a simultaneous one at Woodie’s. A bourbon bottle imprinted with “Kyle Swanson Legacy Fund” now sits near the neon Bengals logo sign on the first floor of Woodie’s.

“It’s like a little piece of Kyle is there with me,” Swan said.

* * * * *

The floors at Woodie’s get larger and louder as you go up on game days. To fully experience Bengalmania, I reserved a spot on the third floor.

We were given a small circular table near the back. It has Bengals koozies, beads and a pompom. The QR-coded menu included "Skyline Chili." Adam and I decided we had to try it. Adam said it was not the Skyline we know, but he liked and appreciated it. I did, too. A taste of Cincinnati.

We were in a prime spot, near regulars such as Sam Shelander. On that day, he switched from his usual No. 9 Burrow jersey to No. 1 to send good karma to the returning Ja’Marr Chase. Shelander has been coming here since seeing a Bengals flag outside last year.

And what a year it was.

“Perfect,” said Hardy Ndwa, a West Chester transplant and part of Swan’s original handful of Bengals fans leading the transition of Woodie’s. Shelander referred to last season as a “fever dream.” I think. Maybe he just said “dream.” It was too loud to tell. Anyway, he meant this in a good way.

Preston Kahn also wore a Chase jersey. He and Sam sat across the aisle from us. Preston and Sam, both 27, were friends growing up in Madeira and eventually found jobs in Chicago. They live near Woodie’s and come here weekly.

During a Bengals game last month, Woodie’s had a raffle that raised about $1,300 for Kahn and his latest cause, the Chicago Furniture Bank, which lets clients who face poverty pick a home’s worth of free furnishings. Kahn’s GoFundMe campaign goal is $15,000, and he is about a quarter of the way there. He will climb Mount Kilimanjaro starting Jan. 12, 2023, to draw attention to the cause.

Kahn will wear something Burrow/Bengals-related but will miss the start of the playoffs. He will be back in plenty of time to see the ending he wants to see: “To see the Bengals in the Super Bowl again,” he said.

A man holding a scepter and wearing a Bengals cape, a Burrow jersey and a crown offered us shots of some orange concoction. He is former Woodie’s bartender Devon Sexton, who grew up in Versailles, Indiana, and served that day as the Tiger King, a game-day tradition at the bar.

He asked me for a trivia question to share, and I told him to ask which famous Bengal was in “The Right Stuff.”

The crowd normally skews middle 20s to early 30s, so I might have been the only customer there old enough to remember the 1983 movie and bit role for Anthony Munoz. I didn’t mind the generation gap. I felt like this was where I was supposed to be, with family and mostly Bengals-clad fans.

I saw people wearing the garb of other teams, too. Lions and Packers and Bears. Oh, my, even Steelers. Not that I could see a lot of the room, but everyone seemed to be having a good time, whether everyone was into the game or just the scene. The place was packed; our table was a mini-oasis.

Assorted heads obscured my full-screen view of the game action, but I could see more than enough on one of the TVs. If I wanted a perfect view, if I cared about the side chatter drowning out the announcers, I could have stayed home.

When something big happened, the place erupted and I loved it. Kahn and Shelander stood on their chairs, pounding on the ceiling at key moments, especially when everyone belted out the fight song after the Bengals scored.

As the drama built toward the end, I cheered, high-fived Adam and Sara then hoisted my arms in victory.

The Bengals fandom became a “we” again.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Mike Bass column on Bengals bar in Chicago