Soldier Field

• 1410 Special Olympics Drive
• Chicago, IL 60605
• (312) 235-7000
• Website

One of the first adjustments I had to make when we moved to Michigan 17 years ago (besides the switch to Eastern Time from Central Time) was that I no longer had easy access to my favorite sports teams.

I grew up near Chicago. My allegiances are to Chicago teams so that means I pretty much only get to see “my teams” play when they play Detroit teams.

It’s not a huge deal. Yes, I could buy the league passes but I’m not that big of a sports fan. I like sports. I like my teams, but even if they were on my TV, I’m not the guy that’s going to be sitting down in front of the TV every single night to watch a game.

Living in Kalamazoo, we have a pretty easy drive to both Chicago and Detroit. They’re about the same distance so if I want to go a game in Chicago, it’s an easy one day trip. Same for Detroit.

Every year since I got married in 2009, my dad, my brother, and my best friend from elementary/middle school have gone to a White Sox game at US Cellular Field/Guaranteed Rate Field/Rate Field. That didn’t happen this year for the first time in 15 years. We just couldn’t get our schedules to work out on a weekend that the White Sox were home.

About a month ago, that friend of ours sent a text asking if we wanted to do a Bears game instead this year. He had access to four tickets and figured we could still do a game this year even if it was in a different venue.

I had nothing going on that day so I said I was in.

The game we went to was last Sunday’s New Orleans Saints vs Chicago Bears game at Soldier Field.

Soldier Field is right off of Lakeshore Drive just south of downtown Chicago and near McCormick Place. The address is actually on Special Olympics Drive which is on the east side of the structure between the stadium and Lake Michigan.

Soldier Field has a heckuva history both in the City of Chicago and with the Chicago Bears. It was built in 1924 and opened as Grant Park Stadium It was renamed a year later Soldier Field as a dedication to soldiers who died in World War I. The stadium has hosted football for a hundred years now and has also seen soccer, motorsports, ice hockey, rugby, and hundreds of concerts over the years. The Bears first played a game in Soldier Field in 1926 but they didn’t move in full time until 1974. The stadium underwent a major renovation/reconstruction in 2003 that completely gutted the structure and essentially put a new football stadium right in the middle of it. I touched on it the last time I blogged about Soldier field in 2009. I’ll get to more of it later in this blog.

The tailgate lots open four hours before the game and that’s really the best part of going to any football game, right? It was raining Sunday morning though so that put a little bit of a damper on the tailgate.

My brother picked me up for a Metra station on the southside. I didn’t ride the train in but I wanted to park someplace that was close to the highway and not super expensive. It didn’t make sense for both he and I to pay for a gameday parking pass. I paid $3 to park at the Metra and then hopped in the car with him.

Our parking pass was underneath McCormick Place. We parked around 9:30 am then had to find our way out of McCormick Place and walk to the South Lot (between McCormick Place and Soldier Field) to find out buddy who had already set up his tailgate spot.

The South Lot is the place to be when tailgating at Soldier Field. The line forms at 7 AM. The lot opens at 8 AM and the tailgate goes until kickoff. It’s a party. They don’t allow tents to be set up but they did kind of look the other way because it was raining. They just asked that they be tied to the vehicle so they didn’t blow away and hurt someone.

The grill was already going when I got there so I threw my pre-cooked wings on as well as the sauces so we could get that warmed up and get some food in us before we went in to the game. There was a couple of coolers of beer in the truck but it was all Busch Lite or Miller Lite. I knew that was going to be the case ahead of time so I grabbed a four pack of Two Hearted for myself and downed all four cans before we headed inside.

It’s a little bit of a walk from the South Lot to the stadium so we packed up and started the journey about 11:15 AM. The underpass at Waldron Street just before you get to the stadium is something you have to be prepared for. It’s like a switch comes on as soon as you get under the road. The whole crowd just starts chanting “Green Bay Sucks.” It doesn’t matter if the Bears are playing Green Bay or not. It’s just tradition.

From this lot, you come to the South Gate. That is the gate we *should* have went in but my buddy thought our tickets were in the north endzone (spoiler alert, they were in the south), so we kept walking right by the Walter Payton statue and around to the northeast side of the building.

We eventually made our way in to a gate near the north endzone but not all the way around to the northside. You walk through the old walls of the stadium and in to an enclosed area that used to be the concourse area where they do the security checks and take the tickets.

From there, we had to find our seats. We knew we were in the 300 level but had a really, really hard time figuring out how to get up to that 300 level. It seems like there was only one ramp, on the other side of the stadium to get up there. All of the signs we kept finding just kept pointing us to go south. Things weren’t too bad as we came up on to the main concourse level underneath the 100 level. We did notice right away though that the concourse is pretty narrow.

As we got further around to the side, things got infinitely worse. It was packed. Shoulder to shoulder with no place to go. It was almost like one of those traffic jams where two people try to go through a door at the same time. We lost my brother and our friend, but I stuck with my dad to make sure he didn’t get lost somewhere. The problem then became, we didn’t know where our seats were. Since there are no paper tickets anymore, my buddy had the tickets on his phone. I had to text him and my brother to get a section number and it took them a while to respond.

During the game, this isn’t an issue but during pre-game, the concession booths set up on the actual concourse are part of the problem. Not only do they take up space but people are actually forming lines trying to get nuts while the rest of us are doing our best to squeeze past.

There are also souvenir stands that cause the same problem but these were a little more out of the way set up on corners instead of in the cramped space near the bathrooms.

We did finally, after about 20 minutes of being in that mess, make it to the ramp, on the southside of the stadium, that would take us up to the 300 level. It was also crowded but there was finally some relief. The ramps were pretty wide and it gave us some breathing room as we made our way up to the upper level.

This is where you really get the feel for how this stadium was completely gutted in 2003 and a new stadium was just set right inside. At the time, the stadium wasn’t torn down because it was on the National Register of Historic Places. They lost that designation when this stadium opened because there is almost nothing left of the original stadium other than the walls. They really should have just let it been torn down. The columns are still there, which are a cool design feature but they don’t really add anything to the stadium anymore. The original architecture is overshadowed by the “spaceship” that landed inside it.

You can also see just how big and flat the old stadium used to be. There are actually still some seats from the top of the original structure. I went to one game in the old Soldier Field with a friend when I was in elementary school and my memory is that we sat almost near the top of the stadium in the endzone. That would have put us a long, long way from the field, which again, is my memory of that trip. Those seats are inaccessible to fans now and are just part of the wall holding up the original structure.

The upper level is kind of divided in to two sections. We actually had to go up the ramps then back down a flight of stairs to get to our concourse in the endzone. From there, there are portals that bring you out to the seats. We were in the 300 level so we came out the portal and went up to find my brother and my buddy who were already in the seats.

The seats themselves in this level are just plastic. The actual seat feels a little flimsy but they are surprisingly wide enough. Stadium seating is always a little uncomfortable but this wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Our seats actually weren’t all that bad. Yeah, they were in the endzone and pretty far up but I thought it was actually a pretty good view. My brother and I went to a game probably close to 20 years ago and we sat on the 50 yard line but two rows from the top in the upper deck and those were awful. I’d take these again any day.

I could go on and on about how much I love outdoor football and outdoor football stadiums. I’ve been to a lot of games at Ford Field for work and it always just feels weird. I love that you can see parts of the Chicago skyline from inside Soldier Field.

Even from the lower bowl you can see parts of the building sticking up past the walls of the stadium.

As with most stadium redesigns and rebuilds, the main driving force behind this stadium rebuild was luxury suites. There are some in the 200 level but most of them are on top of the east side stands.

So this is a food blog, supposedly, so let’s talk about that real quick. I didn’t eat inside. That’s the reason I brought wings to the tailgate.

I did have a beer because my buddy bought it. It was a Miller Lite that cost $13. I was going to repay the favor but by the time I went down to use the bathroom, beer sales had ended so I screwed up.

Most of the concession stands are built in to the walls of the concourse. There are a number of stands on both the upper and lower levels that sell all of the usual stadium foods.

There is a concession stand at almost every section though so the lines weren’t very long. I just wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to pay stadium prices for food since i wasn’t super hungry.

There were a couple of nice bar areas but I didn’t look too closely at them either. The Miller Lite Midway is on the west side of the stadium and it’s enclosed so on those cold days, there is a way to warm up. There are also a couple of bars spread throughout the stadium

Right at the south entrance there is a pretty big area with a couple of really big bars and some grab and go. There are TV’s in this area too that show not only the Bears game but other games going on at the time. It’s got kind of a sports bar feel to it

If you’re coming to a game, this really is the entrance you should come in anyway. There is a lot of space here and it’s going to be much easier to start the wayfinding.

We actually saw a win. We never see wins for the Chicago team when we go to games. I don’t think my dad and brother were really excited about going to a football game but both ended up really enjoying the game. I go to college and pro football games all the time for work but this is the first time I actually got to just go and enjoy myself in a really long time. As we were walking out, we got to do the whole “Green Bay Sucks” chant again as walked back under the Waldron Drive Bridge to get to our car.

I understand why they Bears want to get out of Soldier Field. The big reason is they don’t own it. The City of Chicago Park District does. I get that. But man, I don’t want the Bears to leave downtown Chicago. I feel like Arlington Heights is so far north and it’s so far removed from the city it’s going to end up being a generic stadium with a generic game day experience. Soldier Field is right in the heart of the city and you feel like it’s in Chicago. Yeah, the stadium is dated. Yeah, the Bears can do better. Yeah, the whole dropping a space ship into the Soldier Field walls is weird and makes for some tight quarters. But I just don’t think you can beat the game day experience, inside and outside, of Soldier Field.