Chicago History Museum Pub Crawl

Saloons of Old Chicago: The Gold Coast
April 26, 2007

Pub #1: Green Door Tavern in the Speakeasy Room

The Chicago History Museum's second-ever pub crawl, dubbed Saloons of Old Chicago: The Gold Coast, kicked off at the Green Door Tavern in their legendary speakeasy room. This room can be found downstairs and is rented out for private parties. Every Friday night, comedy is featured and, on the night of our pub crawl, we were lucky enough to encounter David Parr who is a professional musician and leads the "Magician's Roundtable" each month. Our pub crawl group numbered about 34, so we were a little pressed for space upstairs as the Green Door Tavern attracts a fairly lively crowd on Thursday nights. David Parr and the Musician's Roundtable allowed us to crash their discussion group, and as a bonus, David did a magic trick with one of our group members, where he successfully guessed the card selected by one of our group in clever fashion. If you look up, you'll see remnants from another card trick often performed where the card selected by a volunteer literally flies out of the deck and sticks on to the ceiling. I was also lucky to have met Pauli, the manager of the Green Door Tavern, who has worked for 10 years at the legendary saloon and is full of good stories about the place – thanks Pauli! Check out the Chicago Bar Project Former Speakeasies page for a list of other Chicago bars that used to host speakeasies during Prohibition.

Here are some photos from the pub crawl. Enjoy.

Other pubs on the crawl:

• Brehon Pub
• Coq d'Or
• Hangge Uppe

~ Have a good story relating to this bar? E-mail it to me. ~

[back to the Chicago Bar Project]

– written by Sean Parnell