On Chicago Bears game days, ’85 Bar West feels like a Soldier Field satellite, with jerseys everywhere, the fight song blaring after touchdowns, and strangers packed shoulder to shoulder, leaving as friends. The restaurant and bar seem like they have been airlifted straight from a Chicago neighborhood and dropped into Waukee.
Its menu follows suit, with Chicago specialty dishes making Windy City transplants feel at home with Italian beefs, sausages and Malort. But it’s the hot dogs that gained the attention of USA TODAY, which named the restaurant one of the best in the country for its glizzies.
From East Village dive to full-service west-side destination
The original ’85 Bar opened during the pandemic in Des Moines’ East Village. Co-owner Isaac Alaniz, an Illinois native and lifelong Bears fan, and his partners had long daydreamed about a true Chicago sports bar, something modeled after places like Mort’s Bar & Grill outside Peoria, Illinois, where Bears fandom is practically a religion. When a small space opened next to the Locust Tap, they signed the lease just as the full COVID shutdown hit.
The timing was nerve-wracking but oddly perfect: they spent that downtime gutting and rebuilding the space with help from friends in construction, turning it into a tight, DIY-feeling Bears bar that quickly became a game-day institution.
After running ’85 Bar, named for the Chicago Bears Super Bowl win in 1985, in the East Village, a real estate firm approached the group with a pitch to expand west to Waukee. At first, the idea was modest “just open a bar and have some food.” But as planning progressed, ’85 Bar West had shifted from “another bar” into a full-service restaurant built to feed families, kids and game-day regulars all week long.
The Waukee outpost that opened in June 2024 shares the name and Bears obsession of the East Village original, but Alaniz is quick to point out that the two have distinct personalities. Downtown is late nights, cramped crowds and bar energy; Waukee is all-day service, lunch shifts, kids eating mini corn dogs, families planning around youth sports, “a completely different beast out here,” as he put it.
The inspiration for ’85 Bar West combines Bears, family and an adopted Chicago soul
Alaniz grew up in Illinois in a Bears household; both sides of his family followed the team. That nostalgia and fandom are baked into the brand. The East Village bar is dotted with nods to his grandfathers, from old records to family memorabilia, and ’85 Bar West pulls those personal touches into a brighter, more polished setting.
On game days in the East Village, regulars would camp out at the bar for three or four hours, nursing beers and hot dogs. Alaniz and his team kept wishing they could offer more than a back-of-the-bar dog or a one-off Italian beef special. Waukee became the chance to enlarge that vision, keeping the raucous Chicago-sports energy, but adding a full kitchen and a menu that takes “bar food” more seriously than the label suggests.
What to order at ’85 Bar West
Chicago dog, $13: It all starts with the Chicago-style hot dog, dragged through the garden. Chicago-style hot dogs were “pretty much non-negotiable,” Alaniz said. The owners had already been serving Chicago dogs at the East Village bar, expecting them to be a fun little niche and instead watching them grow into a signature. The Waukee kitchen lets them fully commit.
According to Alaniz, a proper Chicago dog here means a steamed poppy seed bun, neon-green sweet relish (“not just green. It has to be neon green”), “run it through the garden” with the classic Chicago toppings and no ketchup on the Chicago dog itself. If customers want it, the bottle’s on the table, but it doesn’t go on the “official” version.
In a perfect world, Alaniz said, they’d use Vienna Beef exclusively, but the cost and distribution commitments (think 100-case annual minimums) make that hard to sustain, especially when they like to discount dogs during happy hour and Cubs games. Their compromise: a quality all-beef hot dog that keeps the price of a dog-and-fries meal from creeping beyond what fans will tolerate.
Chili dog, $12: Chili, cheese and diced onion come on this hot dog. Order it with the ruffle fries,
The Italian beef, $18: The other crucial Chicago anchor comes either dry with au jus on the side or fully “dipped.” Customers can choose mild or hot giardiniera and cheese, including mozzarella, provolone or pepper jack, even if some purists might object. The restaurant’s stance is that if you’re paying for it, you get it how you like it.
Italian beef was one of the first things the team wrote on their Waukee menu wish list, the “second or third word out of our mouth,” Alaniz said. He always wanted to serve it regularly in the East Village but couldn’t make it work in that tiny, bar-focused setup.
For those who want something lighter but still on theme, there’s a low-carb beef bowl, built around their Italian beef with optional cheese, giardiniera and even rice for those who want a little more heft.
Wings, 10-piece classic, $16; 12-piece boneless, $15: The wings are non-negotiable for the owners. “That was No. 1,” Alaniz said. They brine and par-bake the wings, cool them down, then finish them in the fryer for service. About half of the sauces are made in-house; the others start with workhorse staples like Frank’s, “dolled up” into something more personal to the bar. The approach isn’t to chase scratch-kitchen perfection so much as to do the classics really well.
Smash burgers, $9 to $14: Burgers are another cornerstone here, built around a classic smash-patty model. The standard build is a single patty (you can make it a double), with classic LTOP and the house “Singletary sauce,” a nod to Bears legend Mike Singletary and a riff on Big Mac sauce done their way.
The Fire and Honey Burger is currently one of their top sellers with pepper jack cheese, bacon, jalapeños, a dollop of cream cheese and hot honey over a smash patty. It started as a one-off special and sold so well it earned a permanent spot on the menu.
Monday burger specials have been a draw, and they’re rebalancing prices — bumping up the deal to around $12 for a burger, fries and a beer, a nod to rising costs without losing the sense of value that’s key for a neighborhood sports bar.
Chicago handshake, $7: Be a true Chicagoan and order the Chicago handshake, Malört and an Old Style. The old-school lager is as much a cultural marker as anything they serve from the kitchen.
What to look for inside: newspapers, jerseys and iconic signs
You could say that ’85 Bar West’s walls are an ode to everything about that magical year when the Bears beat the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX on Jan. 26, 1986. After all, the 1985 Bears team is famously remembered as one of the most dominant squads in NFL history. They finished the regular season 15-1 and recorded two shutouts in the playoffs before blowing out the Patriots in the championship game.
The bones of the restaurant start with reclaimed wood walls carried over from the East Village aesthetic. They sourced it from the same local supplier they used downtown. Alaniz called it one of his favorite design features in both spaces.
The exposed brick was added to echo the feel of the original bar, giving Waukee a bit of that city grit beneath the polish.
A glowing Miller Lite neon sign calls out another fixture in the East Village bar. It’s instantly recognizable to regulars and now duplicated to give both locations that same visual anchor.
Look for original 1985 newspapers framed along the hallway and entryway. Each page is filled with coverage from the Bears’ Super Bowl era. Customers can lose time just reading the old ads and movie listings. Those papers originally came as a gift from a friend and have become a signature look; Taylor Rogers, the general manager who handles much of the interior design, said they’re his favorite detail.
Look for a Junkyard Dogs poster, a piece Alaniz grew up coveting in his grandfather’s garage, now hanging in the bar as a quiet through-line from childhood fandom to grown-up ownership. Scarves, records and memorabilia from actual games hang on the walls alongside donated jerseys and keepsakes. Families who’ve lost a Bears-loving parent or grandparent have brought in pieces of their collections to live on these walls. For Alaniz, that’s the emotional core of the space: “This reminds me of my family, and I think it’s cool that it does that for other people as well.”
Game day in Waukee brings an electric feel for Da’ Bears
On Sundays in season, ’85 Bar West becomes something closer to a civic event. Doors open an hour before kickoff, and there’s already a line forming; by game time, every seat is filled and even standing room is spoken for.
The staff seats people banquet-style, mixing small groups and singles at long tables. You may walk in alone and end up celebrating with six strangers; regulars know when to arrive and where they like to sit, but newcomers are quickly folded into the ritual.
Key beats of a Bears Sunday here include the Chicago Bears fight song blasting after every touchdown. During commercial breaks, the sound on the TVs turns down so fans can hear curated music instead of TV ads, giving the afternoon a house-party feel rather than a standard sports-bar drone.
Food service hits in two waves: a crush of orders just before the game and then a long lull as people settle in to watch, sometimes four hours at a stretch.
Packers and other opposing fans do show up, and while they won’t get their game on the main TV bank, they’re not heckled out of the room. The bar leans into camaraderie more than hostility.
Where to find ’85 Bar West
Where to find ’85 Bar
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Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: USA TODAY says this Waukee restaurant has some of the best hot dogs
Reporting by Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
