I can vouch for the Vaughn's location on Sheffield. Obviously, it is smack dab in the middle of un-coolness, but it is still a very nice, if often crowded, bar. One of the Vaughn kids worked at the same big firm as me, and the bar was a very regular gathering spot for numerate, detail orientated, folk from Big 10 schools (+ Miami of Ohio). In other words, Sheffields with a better drawn pint.

Rob

JeffB wrote:Still and all, this is a great bar town. Probably the best.

I have to disagree. There are good bars here. But there used to be a lot more. I think the case of Simon's (Foster and Clark) is instructive. It used to be an Swedish "old man" neighborhood bar. Hipsters discovered the neighborhood and it. It got sold. The new owners have done a nice job. They have tried to keep some of the old Swedish flavor but have hipped it up (Pixies on the juke box, actual furniture replacing the white plastic lawn furniture). Now it's no longer a great (if financially untenable) neighborhood bar. It's a cool bar with some real personality. That, in itself is not a horrible thing. Neighborhoods change and neighborhood bars change with them. This is the horrible thing: Simon's has become a very difficult place to spend time Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. It is choked with people (not necessarily bad people, just lots of them), there is no place to sit (or stand comfortably), and the noise makes intelligent conversation impossible. I think this is largely because of the shortage of good bars in Chicago. Once the bar going public discovers a good bar, the bar becomes a destination. If it were easier to run a bar, there would not only be more bars in Chicago, there would be more bars that reflect the personality of the people who own them and the culture of their neighborhood -- i.e. good bars. If there were more good bars, those bars would not be overrun.

I haven't lived in Milwaukee for many years and don't go out there much when I visit. Nevertheless, I can think of several great bars there -- bars that are comfortable and/or funny and/or weird; bars where you can get a seat and have a conversation on a Friday night without having to shout over stupidly loud music. I Chicago had this at one time. But we are losing it -- thanks to Daley, or gentrification, or suburbanization of the population, or whatever combination of these and other factors. It's depressing. It's a damn shame. It makes me want to drink.

john m wrote:I like drinking in Fast Eddies a bit more--Vaughan's can get quite crowded, and the seating arrangements are a bit awkward. Still, the pint is good, and the staff and clientele enjoyable.

John,

Stopped for a couple of Guinness and a thimble or three of Powers tonight at Fast Eddie's, you're right they pour a hell of a pint, on a par with my current favorite Vaughan's. Impossible to say which I prefer without much fieldwork.

I was charged with bringing home dinner for three, myself, wife, and her visiting sister so I asked Tom, the mild mannered, yet engaging, bartender, I tend to think positively of anyone who buys me a shot of Powers, to suggest take out pizza in the area. Tom not only suggested Phil's Pizza, but called for me.

While Phil's thin crust pizza might not be Vito and Nick's or Candlelite, it certainly hit the spot. A large cheese, sausage, mushroom and onion, along with a Phil's Special salad, was more than enough for the three of us.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Enjoy,
Gary

McAteer's Irish Pub aka Fast Eddie's
(773) 763-0095
5943 N Northwest Hwy
Chicago, IL 60631

Phil's Pizza D'oro
6132 N Northwest Hwy
Chicago, IL
773-763-2285

Vaughan's Pub & Grill
(773) 631-9206
5485 N Northwest Hwy
Chicago, IL 60630

Gary,

I'm glad you tried Fast Eddies. I'm even happier you tried Phils--as it's been on my list for a while. We're looking for a new delivery option--as our two stand-bys, Basta Pasta and Morettis--are inconsistent. Basta, which was my regular for a while, recently spiced up the sauce too much, and based on my last order from Morettis, they seem to be following suit.

Next pizza at my house wll be from Phils!

Always happy to join the argument late, and in a contrary manner.

Seems to me the Mayor hisself has 2 goals - votes and fundraising. Of late, I think that removing bars seems to be more likely to get him votes than adding or keeping bars. I believe this to be a reflection of broader trends within our society, which I do not like so much (full disclosure), but the Mayor for better and worse is just reflecting them.

As to the types of bars, don't you think that is just reflective of what those who financially support the administration think will make money?

Anyway, I pretty much gave up on saving the character of cities when lower Manhattan and Times Square got turned into Disneyfied, suburbanite enclaves almost 20 years ago. Hell, if they could do that to Times Square, the scummiest, grittiest, piece of urban hell I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying (never a dull moment, 7x24), nothing was safe or sacred.

Southport's conversion, by contrast, is so subtle as to be unoticeable - okay ,not really, but it is not such a big change from middle class, residential, light commercial neighborhood, to gentrified residential, light commercial neighborhood. The Mayor would be happy to take credit for it, but I doubt he had much, if anything to do with it.

The curmudgeon rests.

The Daleys have always had a puritan streak, which I think is genuinely felt-- the old man apparently would give you one warning if he found out that you kept a hatcheck girl on the side in addition to your Bridgeport home with nuclear family, and if you didn't heed it, that was the end of your career in the machine. But it is also, I think, how they divert the impetus for reform away from the real bread and butter of the political structure. Coming after Martin Kennelly, the ineffectual reform mayor (who was, while we're talking politicians' personal lives, also our first known gay mayor), Hizzoner Daley I made a big show of cleaning up the vice emporia which once flourished near every major train station and in the shadow of the Merchandise Mart-- no more open brothels, no more strip clubs, no more "26 girls." Likewise Daley II goes after the supreme sins of our age-- smoking and drinking. Perhaps when young Patrick Daley comes back with his war record he will tackle fatty foods, and we will have to go to Melrose Park or Cicero for the last Italian beef in Chicagoland.

(By the way, though it's not to my mind the best book on Chicago's historical low life, Herbert Asbury's history Gem of the Prairie has been reissued as The Gangs of Chicago, to tie in with his recently filmed book on The Gangs of New York, and it's easy to find in bookstores at the moment, if this topic interests you.)

Vital Information wrote:Think about it. Look at all the bars that have opened up around you (if you are in the city). How many are not versions of something British or Irish. I mean, last night, we had another of those ultra-satisfying meals at Halina's, and even on the far NW side in this quite Polish area, there is a fake pub called Celtic something. Figger that out.

Just last week I was driving through Highwood, which has been an Italian enclave for several generations, there is a Irish-themed bar under construction.

Not all 'great ideas' reside exclusively in the city!

edk wrote:

JeffB wrote:Still and all, this is a great bar town. Probably the best.

I have to disagree. There are good bars here. But there used to be a lot more.... If there were more good bars, those bars would not be overrun.

I haven't lived in Milwaukee for many years and don't go out there much when I visit. Nevertheless, I can think of several great bars there -- bars that are comfortable and/or funny and/or weird; bars where you can get a seat and have a conversation on a Friday night without having to shout over stupidly loud music. Chicago had this at one time. But we are losing it -- thanks to Daley, or gentrification, or suburbanization of the population, or whatever combination of these and other factors. It's depressing. It's a damn shame. It makes me want to drink.

This Milwaukee expat agrees with Ed.

Kurt

I don't know of any decent hang-out bars in walking distance of my place (downtown Evanston). I do admit not to have hung out in Davis Street Fishmarket or The Keg, and one can hang out in Pete Miller's during the week, though most people in that bar are couples or groups. The new Irish pub (no really on Church is good, but the bar area is way too small, as is the one at Merle's. Bar Louie seems a date/pickup place, and Tommy Nevin's is overrun with NU undergrads. Stained Glass really isn't a wine bar, just a restaurant.

Am I missing a gem?

At least you HAVE bars. My options for alcohol are severely limited in Albany Park (right by North Park). I love everything about my neighborhood except the fact that there are hardly any bars in walking distance and even as the neighborhood changes (slowly, but surely and mostly against my wishes--there is afterall, a Starbucks south of Lawrence now) the one thing I can count on not changing, because of Daley, is the bar situation. I don't blame him for there not being any bars now (maybe I should?) but I do blame him for the hopeless that anything can change.


Going in another direction, what is the trend in other major cities? In previous posts some are hesitant to put the blame on Daley. Instead, the changing make-up of the city gets some of the blame. Other cities are experiencing the same changes (some more some less). Have cities like New York, Boston, or even Milwaukee (since it's been brought up) seen such a sharp drop in bars in the past 15 years?

Finally, something I can hopefully illuminate while keeping my raging opinions in check.

Bars were (and some still are, like the Charleston, Lottie's, and the Bucktown Tap in Bucktown, although much transformed) often located on what is known in planning parlance as "non-arterial" streets.

That is, they are inside neighborhoods, like many churches are, because they were originally conceived of and founded to fulfill a very local function.

Other commercial establishments like this were the corner grocery and often the butcher.

Much of the original urban renewal funding dating back to the 1950s saw these as "non-conforming" uses, and thus undesirable. Updates to zoning generally incorporated this bias.

Business establishments were "grandfathered" in, that is they could continue to do business as long as there was no change in business ownership.

When I first moved to Chicago in the mid-70s, it was not possible to purchase meat at supermarkets except 9-5 M-F because of strong union work rules. This forced me to find a butcher, but since I had grown up in a family that felt like a butcher was something every family needed, and across the street for a long time from our family butcher, it didn't seem like any big deal.

I found this great butcher in Old Town, just NE of St. Michael's. German, several generations in the business. He had the oldest continually operating smokehouse in Chicago behind his business/home. He had one son who died in Vietnam, and one daughter, who was married to a butcher but liked the union environment.

He wanted to retire, and he could not sell his business, even though he had a dedicated and talented assistant working for him. His entire front room (counters, coolers with oak doors, etc.) was donated to the Historical Society.

I still vividly remember his final day in business, both fondly and with great sadness.

It saddens me to post the latest update in Daley's attempt to dismantle the nightlife and social fabric of the city:

Problem taverns face crackdown

By Gary Washburn
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 10, 2005, 3:48 PM CDT

Mayor Richard Daley called today for a crackdown on problem bars and liquor stores by giving local neighbors new power to put them out of business.

Under Daley's proposal, the Mayor's License Commission would hold a hearing if 51 percent of the voters living within 500 feet of a liquor establishment sign a petition contending that the business has a "deleterious impact" on the neighborhood.

For the next week, the full article is here for those registered on the Tribune's site (which is free).

Don't be so cynical. This is Democracy at work. I mean, if I spend my hard-borrowed money to knock down some old rowhouses and workers' cottages to build a large condo mid-rise that happens to be within 500 feet of some dank "tavern" that has been sitting there serving the local holdouts for the last 50 years, and the nice folks who would like to live in Lincoln Park but can't afford it so they have to buy a condo in a sorta shady but really cute and close to cool stuff part of town with a lot of old guys from Poland or Bohemiana or whatever who like to get drunk at 10 in the a.m. become the "majority" within the "community" that is, quite rationally, defined as that area within 500 feet of a problem bar, and those folks don't want to have to walk past that stinky bar with its door open all the time on the way to McDinty's then those people should be able to vote the stinky bar out of the neighborhood and then maybe it will be replaced by a new condo with a nail place and a cell phone store.

Like I said, Democracy.

JeffB wrote:Don't be so cynical. .......... then maybe it will be replaced by a new condo with a nail place and a cell phone store.

Like I said, Democracy.

You forgot the dry cleaners...

Generally speaking, I abhor the mayor and Winston Mardis's obsession with shutting down neighborhood bars. I'm a firm believer that the local bar is an integral part of a neighborhood's social fabric, and have spent an inordinate amount of time playing my part in keeping this fabric together.

However...

The particular bar that this article referenced--the Last Chance Lounge at Lawndale and Fullerton--was, to put it in the nicest terms possible, a shithole. The clientele was gangbangers, drug dealers, and general bust-outs. There has been a bar in that location for as long as I can remember, and it's always been seedy. My dad drove the Fullerton route for the CTA back in the 70s and 80s, and I used to ride along with him. I always remember that intersection--and the clientele from that bar (it may have been called something different then)--as being particularly rough. I'm sure there are a lot of folks in that neighborhood who are happy they don't have to deal with the problems from that dump anymore.

So, while I hate to see well-heeled newcomers to a neighborhood using their clout to close down decent working class bars, I also think that citizens--of any neighborhood and of any income level--should be allowed to have a say when a bad establishment threatens their quality of life.

But John M...

There are already lots of mechanisms, both above and below the table, to which the city has recourse to deal with such a trouble spot. Touting such dens of iniquity as reasonable and necessary justification for very broadly applicable laws that can be used to get rid of bars with no history of being centres for criminality is just dishonest. Of course, he who "knows no specific knowledge," Rex Ricardus II, and his friends in the real estate industry who share his deep concern for the well being of the common citizenry do not want to come out and say: "We wish to get rid of bars but will concentrate on ones in working class neighbourhoods where we can find ways to justify draconian pseudo-legislation which will enable us to carry out our social and economic agendas with impunity." Rather, they try to bamboozle us into thinking we are being saved from the murderous gang-bangers who we know to frequent some specific bars (and may be lurking in all those shot-and-beer sorts of joints).

Viva el Rey Ricardo, nuestro gran salvador!

Anyway, I don't doubt at all what you say about this particular bar at Fullerton and Lawndale, but I know they don't need a new law to deal with it... There are laws on the books that can be used to revoke bar liquor licences if there is drug activity etc. and proof of drug activity is likely not hard to get on a place as bad as that one... I have a good friend who's a Chicago cop and he's told me stories of how such bars can be and are handled... Again, the rationale for this new law strikes me as govermental fraud.

A

Antonius,

But...one of the most commonly used current mechanisms for shutting down troublesome bars is to vote the precinct dry. In other words, you throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The current proposal (and my knowledge of this is restricted to the article) would allow 51 percent of the voters living within 500 feet of a liquor establishment to trigger a hearing before the mayor's License Commission by contending in a petition that the operation has a "deleterious impact" on the neighborhood. In other words, the immediate neighbors of a problem bar would have the power to do something about it.

To me, this is a more sensible means of eliminating problem bars than the current system, where a well-organized group of Carrie Nation wannabes can dry up an entire precinct, simply because they want to change the City into Pleasantville.

I agree with you that there are laws on the books that can be used to deal with these issues. However, in my opinion, these laws are not applied fairly or consistently. I much prefer a new law which gives the people most directly affected by the problem the means to acheive a solution.

I also know there are unoffical means of handling these problem establishments--constant visits by the CPD, squad cars parked outside, etc. However, the cops can't devote all their time to this, and when they go away, the problems (usually) come back.

john m wrote:But...one of the most commonly used current mechanisms for shutting down troublesome bars is to vote the precinct dry. In other words, you throw the baby out with the bathwater.

To me, this is a more sensible means of eliminating problem bars than the current system, where a well-organized group of Carrie Nation wannabes can dry up an entire precinct, simply because they want to change the City into Pleasantville.

A good point well taken...

I also know there are unoffical means of handling these problem establishments--constant visits by the CPD, squad cars parked outside, etc. However, the cops can't devote all their time to this, and when they go away, the problems (usually) come back.

Again, a good point, but prosecution on standing laws and revocation or non-renewal of license for infractions are also quite doable if the city government is willing to commit the necessary resources. Let's face it, not renewing a licence is something that is hardly hard for them to do; heck, I remember a liquor store being so treated for... well, the story was, they refused to meet the alderman's new and increased "processing" fee. Luckily, the alderman in question got caught doing other bad things and was himself prosecuted...

Nice to know the system works...



A

I sympathize with you, John, but agree with Antonius -- if no other established means can shut down that kind of place, I don't see how this is a law of last resort.

And let's not forget the trouble the city made for Big Chicks on a technicality. As we know, you don't have to be alive to sign a petition (let alone vote) in Chicago. More than anything else, this resolution strikes me as the mechanism by which the city can press for closure working within the law the state legislature passed to help Big Chicks.

The biggest problem (outside of the whole concept of getting rid of bars to improve the city) is that burden of proof is on the accused.

As disturbing as the first part of that article is I'm equally disturbed by the 2nd part.

"On a related issue, Daley said he would seek to close a loophole that has permitted bars to masquerade as restaurants in areas with moratoriums on new tavern openings."

loophole, masquerade, moratoriums...man, he really thinks bars are evil.

CMC wrote:As disturbing as the first part of that article is I'm equally disturbed by the 2nd part.

"On a related issue, Daley said he would seek to close a loophole that has permitted bars to masquerade as restaurants in areas with moratoriums on new tavern openings."

loophole, masquerade, moratoriums...man, he really thinks bars are evil.

I'd imagine Dunlay's on the Square counts as a bar masquerading as a restaurant...

Whether Logan Square has a moratorium, I don't know.

I'd be interested to know how an area gets such a moratorium. I would have to guess that most of the city is under such a moratorium.

From Centerstage:

Drysville
And let's not forget about the dry and moratorium sections of our fair city. Almost 40 of the city's 50 wards have moratoriums in parts of their wards prohibiting new liquor licenses unless the applicant is a restaurant. Suddenly, the growth of restaurants in the city at the expense of new bars makes a lot of sense. When an existing tavern in a moratorium area looks to transfer its license in a sale, this may be a difficult task unless the transfer is to a relative or heir. Liquor license transfers to an outsider in a moratorium area will be denied unless the new owner obtains signature approvals of 51 percent of all legal voters within 500 feet of the premises. That may be one tough nut to crack.

There are still a number of areas in the city that are dry. For instance, along Chicago's famed Southside St. Patrick's Day Parade Route on Western Avenue from 103rd to 112th, only the west side of Western Avenue houses Beverly's cozy Irish pubs. The eastside of Western Avenue remains dry. The Liquor Control act of 1934, a remnant of Prohibition still in tact to this day, allows voters in various precincts to vote certain areas dry.

License to Fill

I agree that the big problem is simply the mind-set that bars (meaning taverns) are bad. There seems little ability to, as noted above, distinguish the baby from the bathwater.

I also think the problem is that the system does not appear transparant or fair, or perhaps better put, it seems capricious, random and arbitrary. And because of this, it seems not only ripe for abuse, vendattas and vindictiveness, it seems also (to my cynical eye) a system for manipulation and worse. (As if...)

Further, as I have noted above, I think Daley and the City have an agenda for bars and such in the city. It is one borne out firstly of style, that the Old Style corner tavern is just not cool (in so many words), and secondly, it seems one borne out by certain connected operators. Why do the Dunnleys seem to have an easy time sprouting outlets like magic? The system (from apperances) seems to be favoring corporate bars with a certain design element (read Irish pub).

And yes, I hate it! I feel like I did towards every corner newsstand. Can't say I visited most of them, but damn do I miss them.

Rob

Daley Pushes Ordinance to Close Taverns

E.M.