The Cock Robin Ice Cream sign at 8861 Burlington Ave., so beloved that the Brookfield Village Board approved a measure in 2019 that might have preserved it in perpetuity, was taken down March 9 by its owner, who promised its fans it would live on.
Martin Lynch, who purchased the property in 2011, said the metal pole topped by metal boxes holding the signage posed a safety hazard.
Not only was the structure corroded, the sidewalk around its base had begun to crack and heave noticeably, a condition that has worsened over the years.
“Our main concern is the safety,” said Lynch, who purchased Irish Times Pub and Restaurant at 8869 Burlington Ave. in 2008 and subsequently acquired the rest of the commercial property to the east.
“If that came down on somebody’s car or family or somebody walking by …”
Andrew Harrington, the village’s code enforcement officer who stood alongside Lynch on the morning of March 9 as workers cut the sign down, agreed that the sign had become dangerous.
“Just basically over time, the wind [rocking the sign back and forth] causes an upheaval, plus the water and ice expansion and contraction, it just all adds to it,” Harrington said.
But fret not, Brookfield nostalgists, you can visit the local icon anytime you wish.
Shortly after a crew removed the sign, local construction contractor Mike Healy passed by and asked his fellow Irishman what he intended to do with the sign.
“He asked me what I was going to do with it, and I said I’d like to frame it somehow and hang it in the beer garden,” Lynch told the Landmark. “He said, ‘When?’ I said, ‘Now,’ and he said, Let’s do it!’ Unbelievable. He took the measurements and went straight to work at his shop.”
Later that evening one of the bird signs was securely displayed on a wall in the beer garden at Irish Times.
“Everyone can come and see the sign now,” Lynch said.
Lynch said when he bought the Cock Robin property in 2011, he at first thought he might be able to reopen the restaurant and resume serving ice cream, steakburgers and milkshakes to Brookfielders.
However, it was not to be.
“[The former owners] had just walked out one day. They left everything in the coolers and freezers,” Lynch said. “It was like walking into a horror movie with all the flies. I would have fired it up at the time, but it had the old electrical and everything, and the whole basement was flooded with water, and the roof, it was just dangerous, so we had to take that down, too, at the time.”
But, Lynch didn’t have the heart to take down the sign, which had become something of a local landmark.
In 2017, the village passed a law requiring the removal of “zombie signs” – signs still advertising businesses that had long moved away or folded – and it looked as if the Cock Robin sign’s days were numbered.
With removal a very real prospect, Brookfield village trustees in 2019 decided to approve a carve-out in the sign code for what they termed “historic” signs and allowed for their preservation.
“It’s been a journey with it, trying to do the right thing, trying to see if we could preserve it, save it and then realizing we couldn’t,” Lynch said.
If it wasn’t possible to preserve it as-is, Lynch pivoted to preserving the signs by incorporating at least one of the bird signs into his existing setup at Irish Times. Lynch added that other sign elements could make their way into future development of the property.
“Whatever we do we’ll try to incorporate them back into the building so they’ll still be here,” he said.
A more ambitious plan Lynch has considered includes constructing a mixed-use building east of Irish Times, with ground-floor commercial spaces and apartments above. He’s even kicked around the idea of turning the one-story storefront immediately east of Irish Times into a business reminiscent of the old Cock Robin ice cream parlor/grill.
“We even came up with a concept called Robin’s Nest that would tie in with it and be like burgers, ice cream, stuff like that,” Lynch said. “We’re trying to figure it out. Pre-pandemic it would have been a lot easier to make a decision, but it’s just so uncertain now.”
More likely is a project to expand Irish Times’ outdoor beer garden to the east, adding a full-service bar, more bathrooms and protecting more of the outdoor space from the elements to extend its use through more of the year
“We could expand it probably up to where the tent is, so we can eliminate the tent in the future,” Lynch said. “With the costs of building at the moment, it’s not viable to go with the full development, so we’re going to see if we can do something with the single-story building and incorporate it all in together.”
It’s unclear just how long the sign of a tuxedoed bird sporting a top hat and with the words “Cock Robin” emblazoned on his red breast has stood sentinel over the property that once housed the long-demolished restaurant.
However, it probably dates to around 1960, after a former partner in the original Prince Castle chain of ice cream shops was forced to rename the locations he owned, including the one in Brookfield.
The bird image on the sign was conceived between 1958 and 1962, based on newspaper advertisements of that era. Whether the thick plastic panels fitted into the metal box atop the pole are that old isn’t known, but they could be.
Based on photographs of former Cock Robin locations – the one in Brookfield was the last to close its doors, in 2006 – the restaurants’ signage was standard, using a pole to support a horizontal box where weekly specials could be advertised and a box on top holding the iconic bird logo signs.
According to Brookfield historian Chris Stach, in a 2007 article reporting that the property had been placed on the market for sale, the “Since 1931” sign went up in late 2004.
