Jun 11, 2017 | Billy "Goat" Sianis, Michigan Avenue
Most days Billy “Goat” Sianis summons a favored few pals to his table in the V.I.P (Very Insecure People) Room. And, as old men do, he tells stories of the past, of his boyhood in Greece, and wild times on Madison Street.
These are stores those at the table know well. Most of then have told the stories in print: how one of Billy’s goats escapes into the city sewer system; how, when Billy is arrested for speeding, he so charms the cop that he isn’t given a ticket but rather a free lunch; how he is served with a draft notice when he is 70; about formally applying to NASA for the first liquor license on the moon; the time he gets hi shoes stolen while vacationing in Ireland; when he bails two midgets out of jail after the couple is charged with drunken driving after leaving the tavern.
Read about these stories and more in A Chicago Tavern a Goat, a Curse, and the American Dream by Rick Kogan. https://www.billygoattavern.com/product/book-a-chicago-tavern/
Feb 28, 2017 | Billy "Goat" Sianis
“It was tough on Billy at first. That first year he must have gone through 25 bartenders. All of them were stealing. That’s why he used to sit in a high chair right by the stairs with that kid’s hammer that squeaked and that he used to bang on anybody he saw staring at the girls walking down the stairs and say, ‘don’t pay attention to that!’ What he was really doing was watching the bartenders and cash register.”
…from the book A Chicago Tavern a Goat, a Curse, and the American Dream
Feb 16, 2017 | Billy "Goat" Sianis, Madison
One morning in the early summer of 1934, a baby goat falls off a truck traveling east on Madison Street. Dazed and limping, it wanders into the Lincoln Tavern. Sianis sees the goat and sends one of his waiters out to get a baby bottle. While he is feeding the goat, a lawyer sitting at the bar suggests that Sianis adopt the goat, saying: “You’ll get a million dollars worth of free publicity.” This seems like a very good idea to Sianis since his cash register is taking in only seven dollars a day. David Condon, a Tribune columnist who becomes one of the most prolific and imaginative chroniclers of Sianis’ activities, writes that the tavern owner went to courts where” the attorney ad judge conferred. The judge paroled the goat ‘into the custody of William Sianis for life.'”
Immediately, Sianis renames his tavern the Billy Goat Inn and begins to grow a spade goatee to fit the part. There is a small patch of grass in the yard behind the tavern, and there the goat lives and happily nibbles, the first of many goats to call the place home. “All of the Chicago police, if they find a stray goat, and a long time ago there wre lots of goats wandering around, they bring them to my uncle,” says Sam. “They know that my uncle will take good care of the goats.”
…from the book A Chicago Tavern a Goat, a Curse, and the American Dream
