Saloons of Old Chicago: The Gold Coast

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: