Piece is the rare brewpub where the pizza is good enough to be the headline and the beer still steals the show, which is exactly why it has lasted in Wicker Park for more than two decades.
Piece opened at 1927 W North Ave in July 2001, when the founders turned an old roofing-company garage into a casual pizzeria with a skylight ceiling and a sunken lounge. The pizza is New Haven style: thin, blistered, sold red, white, or plain. The beer turned out to be the bigger story. Under brewers Jonathan Cutler and Keil Weimer, Piece has won thirty medals at the World Beer Cup and the Great American Beer Festival, which Time Out Chicago notes makes it the city's most decorated brewpub.
The room
The room is a wide, bright garage with long communal tables, a skylight, and a sunken lounge that fills with screens on game days. It is loud in the good way: a former bartender notices that the staff still pours with care when forty people order at once, and Piece does. There is no pretense here. You sit down, you split a pie, you work through the tap list.
What to order
Start with Golden Arm, the 5% Kolsch that is Piece's calling card, a crisp straw-colored ale that drinks like a lager and has the medals to back it up. Then go for the awards: Top Heavy Hefeweizen took GABF gold in 2009, and The Weight, a 6% pale ale, won World Beer Cup gold in 2014. Order a white pizza with garlic and bacon alongside, the combination locals have ordered for twenty-plus years, and you will understand the place.
The crowd and best time to go
Piece opens late morning daily and runs to 11pm on weeknights, later on Friday and Saturday. The crowd is Wicker Park locals, beer travelers chasing the medal list, and a game-day crowd when Chicago teams play. A weekday late afternoon is the calm window for a quiet pint and a pie. Weekend evenings and big games pack the lounge, so arrive early or expect a wait.
What regulars say
Piece carries 3,953 reviews on Yelp as of June 2026, and the recurring praise is for the New Haven crust, the house Kolsch, and the easy garage-room energy. Enjoy Illinois lists it among the state's signature beer destinations, and Time Out's standing line is that no Chicago brewpub has more hardware on the shelf.
Who it is for
This is for the pizza purist who also reads tap lists, the World Beer Cup completist, and the group that wants screens without a sports-bar atmosphere. Skip it if you want a quiet date-night cocktail, because Piece is built for shared pies, pints, and noise.
The verdict
Piece wins by refusing to choose between food and beer. The New Haven pizza would carry the room on its own, and the medal-winning Golden Arm and Top Heavy make it a genuine brewery destination. Come on a weekday afternoon, order Golden Arm and a white pie, and save the lounge for a game. For more of the city's tap lists, see our guide to the best craft beer in Chicago and the wider craft beer bars by occasion. For a barrel-aged contrast nearby, Forbidden Root is the closest match in ambition, and the full local scene is mapped in the Chicago bar guide.
Sources: Piece Brewery official site (2026); Time Out Chicago; Enjoy Illinois; Yelp reviews.
