Piece Pizzeria in Wicker Park: Greenwashing for St. Patrick's

The other day I was walking home from the CTA station in Wicker Park and saw this banner outside of Piece, a local pizzeria and brewery on North Avenue just east of Damen:


Now, this sounds like a catchy, cute idea, right? Green, like the Irish, like the environmental movement? Piece? Peace? Greenpeace? Get it?

Yeah.

The problem is that this restaurant is such an obvious environmental nightmare that I won't even eat there anymore. Why? Because all summer long, they blast their air-conditioning while leaving two large windows open so their clients can commune with the busy street outside.

Now, I don't object to outdoor seating, but Piece doesn't have any of that. Walking past in the summer -- as I do to commute across the city by train and bus -- I am reminded by blasts of unseasonally frigid air that my efforts to reduce my own environmental impact (by not driving to work) are completely wiped out by the selfishness of this establishment and their clients.

Here's a recent (early Spring) photo -- the two large windows are closed now, but it will give you a sense of their size. While the government is trying to get the rest of us to seal small leaks in our windows and ducts to improve energy efficiency, these guys flaunt the fact that they don't give a flying f***.


Now, Don Gusano has pointed out that perhaps I should be more charitable. Perhaps they've had a change of heart and realized the errors of their ways. To that end, I propose a betting pool on when they open their windows again for the summer. Don Gusano, if you bet "No, they'll leave them closed this year" you will lose.

Now, I'm as sympathetic to guys who want to throw rotten butter at Japanese whalers as the next greenie. But come on, people. If the owners of Piece really gave a s*** about the whales, or anything else in the ocean, they would consider their restaurant's daily practices. Rising ocean temperatures caused by the indiscriminate use of fossil fuels affects the entire ecosystem that whales depend on. It also affects agriculture, and therefore all of us too. Rising wheat and corn prices aren't as dramatic as sea battles, but they will have far more impact in the long run -- especially on those people who couldn't afford to eat at Piece in the first place.

Instead, Piece's owners and/or staff (who apparently also have a rep for being rude) and their eco-zombie patrons plan to assuage their guilt by holding one cleverly named fund-raiser for an organization with a name they can't even spell.


Usually I am the very last person to criticize a spelling error. But "Grenpeace"? That sounds like a parody site just waiting to happen. And clearly, it should be short for "Grendle-peace," an international organization dedicated to improving relations between humans and large scary monsters that might eat them. Now, that's a cause I could get behind.

Do you want to do something really green for St. Patrick's? Boycott Piece.