Archie’s, March 9, 2014–Photo by Nick Kam
The corner bar is the center of any urban neighborhood.
You hear small talk, big talk and jive talk. You know you’re walking into a good corner bar when everyone sitting along the bar turns around to see who is coming through the door. There is no place like their place.
Unfortunately in Chicago the corner bar has gone the way of corner news stands, Cubs victories and vinyl jukeboxes. There are more good corner bars in Milwaukee.
But Archie’s Iowa Rockwell Tavern persists.
The bar celebrates its cornerness to such a degree that it names itself [...]
Midge.
Jan. 13, 2011—
The Old Town Ale House was not a happy bar when I drank there.
It is in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago, just a lucky weave and blind step south of the Second City theater.
I haven’t been there in a couple years, but the last time I was at the Ale House it had been discovered by a new generation of late night revelvers. I was not happy.
The Ale House is open until 5 a.m. on Sunday and 4 a.m. the rest of the week. It has always been a lighthouse for just-off-the-shift bartenders and waitstaff, miserable deadline reporters and Second City actors trying to bottle their adrenaline.
As we drove by the Ale House [...]
Jan. 11, 2011—
There is a corner bar at the end of the block on the street where I live. The classic Chicago workingman’s tavern has been there since 1943. Polka legend Lil’ Wally played “I Like Her Golabka” and “Polish Polka Twist” at this bar during the late 50s and early ’60s.
I have been there twice in recent weeks. The bar is on a one-way street and I walk the other way. During the summer I hear Mexican rancheros spilling out from the windows of brick three-flats. The bar has a good CD jukebox with Merle Haggard, the Ramones and a fuzzy sound system. I like the songs although I don’t need to hear “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” for the rest of my [...]
