Hey Nonny, the music venue and restaurant that has anchored downtown Arlington Heights for eight years, is for sale, along with the 4,000-square-foot commercial condominium it occupies. Co-founders Chip Brooks and Chris Dungan say the sale will not interrupt operations, and the venue's calendar of concerts will continue as the search for a new owner gets underway.
The owners announced the sale on Friday, according to the Chicago Tribune, which reported that both the business and the real estate are being marketed together. Brooks and Dungan say they are looking for a buyer who shares their passion for live music and wants to carry the venue's legacy into its next chapter, per the same report. Hey Nonny, the Tribune notes, is not closing during the sale process.
A Listening Room Built From Scratch in 2018
Hey Nonny opened in October 2018, according to chicagonorthwest.com, giving the northwest suburb an intimate listening room paired with a bistro at 10 South Vail Avenue, per heynonny.com. Brooks and Chris Dungan are described as the venue's co-founders by arlingtoncardinal.com, and the name itself nods to an old English musical verse meant to signal that worries should be let go, per the Tribune's report.
The bet on live music and food together paid off early. Six of the venue's first seven shows sold out, dailyherald.com reported at the time, and the listening room has since hosted jazz, rock, reggae, folk, country and classical performers, according to the Tribune. A gastropub alongside the music room featuring entrées and small plates was part of the original vision, chicagotribune.com reported when the venue first opened in 2018, complementing Arlington Heights' broader downtown redevelopment goals.
Shows Still on the Books
Even with a for-sale sign effectively up, Hey Nonny has dates booked through spring 2027, per the Tribune's reporting. The venue's own show listings on heynonny.com currently show performances scheduled at least through Dec. 26, giving concertgoers a clear runway of programming regardless of how the ownership search unfolds.
A Familiar Pattern Among Independent Venues
Hey Nonny's situation echoes a transition that played out at Chicago's Hideout earlier this year, when Tim and Katie Tuten sold the storied club to Teri O'Brien, a former employee who splits her time between Chicago and Nashville and has launched a music career performing as Americana artist Bronte Falls, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The Hideout's former owners said at the time that the club would remain independent, creative and rooted in the community that built it, the Sun-Times reported. A similar ownership change happened at Fitzgerald's in Berwyn, where Bill and Kate Fitzgerald sold the venue to Will Duncan and Jessica King in 2020, with the new owners continuing its operations.
Hey Nonny's situation echoes a transition that played out at Chicago's Hideout earlier this year, when Tim and Katie Tuten sold the storied club to Teri O'Brien, a former employee who splits her time between Chicago and Nashville and has launched a music career performing as Americana artist Bronte Falls, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The Hideout's former owners said at the time that the club would remain independent, creative and rooted in the community that built it, the Sun-Times reported. A similar ownership change happened at Fitzgerald's in Berwyn, where Bill and Kate Fitzgerald sold the venue to Will Duncan and Jessica King in 2020, with the new owners continuing its operations. The broader economics facing independent venues provide context for ownership changes such as Hey Nonny's. Only one in four independent music venues in Chicago are currently profitable, according to the Chicago Independent Venue League, as cited by the Sun-Times. Nationally, 64% of independent venues were not profitable in 2024, Axios reported, with venues in major cities facing escalating real estate costs and inflation.
Yet the sector's footprint remains substantial. Independent music venues contributed $2.3 billion to Illinois' GDP in 2024, Axios reported, with venues statewide generating $3.9 billion in economic output, $288 million in tax revenue and supporting more than 25,000 jobs that year.
For now, Hey Nonny's doors remain open and its stage calendar intact, even as Brooks and Dungan, who have operated the venue for eight years, begin the process of handing it off to someone new.
