After a 10-year NFL career, Israel Idonije has not slowed down in retirement. During the Chicago Bears inspiring 2025 season, he was often spotted at his family-friendly sports bar The Staley, which has become a premier spot for Bears fans to watch the games. He walked around The Staley, taking photos with friends and patrons before the start of both Bears playoff games. He even returned following the Bears wildcard win on Jan. 10 against the rival Green Bay Packers and thanked everyone for showing up.
The philanthropist and serial entrepreneur is charging forward at turbo speed in his new career as a restaurateur, focusing on redeveloping the South Loop neighborhood. He now owns four restaurant concepts, including The Staley, and has three more slated to open in 2026.
“I love the South Loop,” Idonije told The TRiiBE. “It’s one of Chicago’s greatest neighborhoods, like a little suburb within the city.” Idonije frequented the South Loop neighborhood during the decade he played with the Bears; the team stayed at the Hilton on South Michigan Avenue on game days. In 2014, he started acquiring real estate in the neighborhood, including the Chicago Hudson Motor Row building, which will open in 2027 as Hudson House, a boutique hotel within Hilton’s Curio Collection.
“There were limited options for South Loopers to network, hang out, people watch and have a sexy date night experience,” Idonije said about the neighborhood’s 2000s and early 2010s era.
Idonije’s community involvement in Chicago began early in his football career, coalescing in Impact Fund, with programs reaching more than 10,000 youth across Chicago, Winnipeg, and West Africa, where he was born. He served on the Chicago Public Library Board for three years contributing to literacy initiatives and worked with the Chicago Public School System to develop programs to increase attendance.
As an entrepreneur, Idonije has launched several successful ventures across various industries, from custom comics and crypto to RSTR, a boutique health and wellness club in Chicago’s South Loop, and Impact House, a 40,000 square-foot philanthropic hub in the heart of Chicago’s Loop. In 2024, he made his first foray into the hospitality industry with the opening of Signature Steak, followed by The Staley sports bar, Buttercup Italian cafe and amaro bar, and EGG BUNNi breakfast sandwich spot in 2025.
“Israel is a truly incredible person,” said Stephen Gillanders, Idonije’s chef and partner at The Staley and EGG BUNNi. “He is a huge food lover at heart and very dynamic with his business practice and desire to invest in the South Loop community. Our relationship started when he was a guest during the early days of S.K.Y. in Pilsen. He came in and loved it and wanted to talk.”
The duo hit it off immediately and made a plan to go into business together.
“We just fell in love with the food, the atmosphere, Stephen and his team,” Idonije recalled of their first meeting at S.K.Y. “He took me into the kitchen, and I was shocked that he and his staff were preparing all of the food for everyone in the restaurant in this tiny shoebox space.”
Idonije said he has more than 30 ideas for hospitality concepts that he’s created and mapped out for Chicago, and aligning with partners like Gillanders, Fabio Viviani, Alex Carnovale and Luke DeYoung has been key to bringing those ideas to life.
“I’m not an operator,” Idonije said. “I’m a visionary. I’m trying to accelerate my education in the space, so the volume is really important.”
He quickly learned about the slim margins and volatility in the hospitality industry, but hasn’t let that deter him from his dreams, instead formulating a culture and system to be successful despite the challenges.
“I still consider myself in training camp when it comes to hospitality,” Idonije said “We’re going to get much better in the next few years. We’re creating a playbook. The big time operators in this city, they are running a playbook different than everyone else.”
That includes owning the real estate under each new concept, which wasn’t the case for his first restaurant, Signature Steak, but is important to him moving forward.
“You need to own the dirt so you can control as many variables as you can, or you need a deal on the real estate that makes it really make sense,” Idonije said. “If you can own the dirt, that is an important part of longevity.”
Coming up next, a 1,400 square-foot martini lounge will open in March in the former M Lounge space with weekly poetry nights, live music and karaoke. “My hope is you come out to have martinis in a sexy environment, but I want to create a stage where we can highlight some great artists here in Chicago,” Idonije said.
Also planned for this year are a high-end Japanese cocktail bar, Bar Dimi, with Fabio Viviani as a partner, and Happy’s Classic Ice Cream, a quaint ice cream parlour for South Loop families.
“We’re sandwiched between three schools, Idonije said. “It’s shocking there isn’t more ice cream in the neighborhood. We’ll push hard to get it done in the summer during ice cream season, but we are planning to have 10 to 12 amazing flavors that folks from a broad spectrum of tastes can come and enjoy.”
Idonije believes that his NFL career has helped build a perseverance and never-give-up mentality that is so valuable when facing challenges in his new hospitality career. That includes the possibility of the Chicago Bears leaving Soldier Field and moving to suburban Arlington Heights or northwest Indiana. Idonije weighed in on the ongoing talks about the Bears new stadium dreams.
“I think it would be a mistake for the Bears to leave the city and risk altering their brand,” Idonije said. “The South Loop community will continue to grow regardless of what happens in that respect as there are many businesses and people relocating to the area.”
His north star is building fun and vibrant concepts that raise the South Loop’s profile as a food and drink destination within a city known for outstanding restaurants. Idonije’s Pangea Restaurant Group is named for the supercontinent, and once it’s established, Idonije has even loftier ambitions of using his tools and resources to elevate other minority restaurateurs.
“My hope is to invest in other minority-owned and -led concepts,” he said. “To help them with their concepting, branding, their playbooks. The reason that it’s called Pangea is for this second vision. To bring together the minority-owned restaurateurs of the city.”
It’s this generous spirit and intention to lift up those around him that has made Idonije such a pillar in Chicago.
“I hope that my journey and my life is a testament that none of us are in a box,” he said. “I was a kid from Nigeria who moved to Canada, then came to Chicago at 21 years old on a one-week contract with the Bears and that one week changed my life. I’m just so thankful for the journey and life that I’ve lived.”
