The man who introduced Chicago to Sunday afternoons with the Bears is now plotting how the city might dance on Saturday nights.
Lou Canellis—Fox 32’s veteran sports anchor, lifelong Chicagoan, and self-professed “kid from the South Side who got lucky”—just returned from a culinary trip with his partners, Louie Alexakis and Ian Vlahakis, where they toured Greek restaurants with the curiosity of scouts. They weren’t hunting for the next quarterback. They were casting around for bouzouki music, the clatter of small plates, a spark that could inspire Avli’s next chapter. If the plans hold, Chicago could see it by 2026.
Avli doesn’t need rescuing. Since opening its first Chicago outpost in Lincoln Park in 2018, the brand has multiplied into River North, Lakeshore East and most recently Milwaukee.
Walk into one of its dining rooms and the first impression is brightness—sunlight through tall windows, wicker lamps casting honey-colored glow, walls washed in white like a seaside village. You feel a kind of Greek modernism filtered through Chicago warmth.
The food arrives in generous waves, unfussy and abundant: Greek salad crowned with a slab of feta slick with olive oil, crisp zucchini chips dusted with salt, lamb meatballs in sauce rich enough to demand bread. At the bar, cocktails lean bright and citrusy, balanced with herbaceous Greek liqueurs.
The flavors are contemporary but never coy, rooted in tradition and in the spirit of “philoxenia.” The word translates literally as “love of strangers,” and it gave English its term for hospitality, but in Greece it carries far more weight. Ancient custom held that a guest might be a god in disguise, and so every visitor was met with respect, generosity and a seat at the table. That instinct—part reverence, part warmth—runs through Avli. It’s why a dinner here feels less like dining out than being folded into an embrace, one that extends from the kitchen to the city itself.
For Canellis, it’s a natural second act. He has spent decades turning stadium soundbites into stories, explaining the triumphs and heartbreaks of the Bears to a city that needs its sports as much as oxygen. In front of the cameras he’s a polished professional, but inside Avli he is part host, part ambassador, moving from table to table like a man greeting old friends. The careers may look different—broadcast desk versus restaurant dining room—but they share the same throughline: Chicago as both subject and audience.
His television résumé is formidable. Since joining the Fox 32 Sports team in 2009, Canellis has anchored the station’s Bears coverage with the intensity of a fan and the authority of an insider. He’s interviewed legends, swapped stories with Hall of Famers, and carried the energy of Soldier Field into living rooms across the city.
“I grew up dreaming about being close to the Bears,” he says. “Now I get to tell their story every week. It’s still surreal.”
Those relationships—athletes, celebrities, coaches—follow him off the set, too. Walk into Avli on a Sunday evening and it’s not unusual to see a familiar face from the sports world slipping into a corner booth. More than once, Canellis has seen former players lean back over mezze and recall locker-room memories while diners around them pretend not to eavesdrop.
The leap from TV to tavern isn’t as strange as it seems. Both are built on presence.
Sports television demands authority and charm; restaurants demand warmth and vision. Canellis brings both, plus the same polish he has honed on air. Where co-founder Louie Alexakis focuses on operations and cuisine, Canellis sees himself as Avli’s ambassador-in-chief, the guy who spreads the gospel of Greek dining with a Chicago accent.
“Some restaurants look like photo ops,” he says. “Avli feels like work—joyful work, but work. We’re building something that lasts.”
Longevity has been his quiet obsession. Broadcasting is fast, ephemeral; you live and die by each week’s ratings and each game’s final score. Restaurants, on the other hand, plant themselves in neighborhoods, in memories. The couple that celebrates their anniversary at Avli River North, the family that gathers at Avli on the Park after a graduation—that’s the kind of permanence Canellis is after.
The instinct traces back to his upbringing. Born and raised in Chicago, the son of Greek immigrants, Canellis learned early the value of family and community. Meals weren’t just about food; they were about being together, telling stories, making people feel welcome. Those values still guide him. His wife, Monica, and their daughter, Gia, are his compass.
“Chicago raised me,” he says, “but they center me.” To balance a public career in sports and a high-profile role in dining, he leans on family as both anchor and measure of success.
That perspective has sharpened with time. Sports broadcasting has given him a front-row seat to fame, to athletes whose names live on jerseys long after their careers end. Restaurants have taught him something more subtle: that legacy is built not just on visibility but on hospitality, on how people feel when they walk away from the table.
Which brings him to that culinary trip. Touring restaurants with his partners wasn’t just about scouting menus. It was about sensing atmosphere—the kind of place where Chicagoans might clap along to a bouzouki riff, where food and music blur into memory.
“We’re always looking ahead,” Canellis says. “Chicago deserves the best of what Greek culture can offer, and we’re not done bringing it.”
And maybe that’s the secret to Lou Canellis: the man who can break down a blitz on Sunday and break bread on Saturday. He’s built a career out of making Chicago feel like part of the huddle, whether it’s in front of the cameras or across a table set with feta and olive oil. In both arenas, he knows the playbook by heart: loyalty, pride and a little showmanship. More info: www.avli.us/avli-taverna
“We’re not done bringing the best of Greek culture to Chicago."