Person hospitalized after fire damages popular Northwest Side bar

CHICAGO - A fire at a Northwest Side sports bar and liquor store early Monday morning sent one person to a hospital and left investigators searching for a cause.

What we know:

The fire broke out at Hangovers Sports Bar and Liquor Store near the intersection of West Eddy Street and North Pulaski Road in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood.

Fire crews responded to the blaze, which officials said began in the rear of the business before spreading to the front of the building.

The fire caused extensive damage. Windows were shattered, debris and broken glass covered the area, and illuminated beer signs inside the business were left hanging from wires.

Officials initially reported that no one had been injured. However, authorities later said one person was taken to a hospital. Information about the person's condition was not immediately available.

Fire investigators arrived at the scene after 7 a.m. and began examining the building to determine what sparked the blaze.

What they're saying:

The fire also affected nearby residents.

One neighbor said his power went out. He described Hangovers Sports Bar and Liquor Store as a popular gathering place for people in the area.

"A lot of people from the area go there as a way to get together," he said. "A lot of people are probably going to be very sad."

Vanessa Zayas has been living next to the dive bar for 10 years. She said she was woken up in the middle of the night to someone warning her about the fire.

"It happened at around 3:30 ish this morning. I was sleeping. I live in the basement and then I heard the window banging, a guy saying 'fire, fire.' I run outside and I see the fire trucks and police are outside, and then this is on fire, it's all smoked up."

In all her years of living right next door, Zayas said she has never been to the dive bar but did mention, it gets packed especially in the summer months. Recently, however, she noticed something posted on the windows while she was walking by.

"There's like a sign on the window saying that, oh sorry, we've been going down the bumps in the road and we'll be coming back in business. It was like that for two days. So I heard there is new management going on, maybe new owners now, and now this happened, this fire stuff."

Zayas said she gets power through ComEd and was also experiencing an outage.

"All I received was a notification from the app saying the power will come back on by 9 in the morning today. I did get a notification prior to that... it says the power is out and is under investigation."

Residents were hoping for a quick restoration of power as temperatures are expected to be near 90° this week.

FOX Chicago reached out to ComEd, and they said as of 9:30 a.m., power had been restored to those affected.

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