History

Since 1958, The Old Town Ale House has been pouring drinks, starting arguments, ending arguments, and giving Chicago a place to be exactly itself.

Tucked into the heart of Old Town at 219 W. North Avenue, the Ale House is one of Chicago’s great neighborhood bars: unpretentious, lived-in, funny, strange, and stubbornly resistant to becoming anything other than what it is. Opened by E.J. Vangelder, the bar was inspired in part by the old saloons of San Francisco’s North Beach, and it quickly found its place in a neighborhood known for artists, writers, actors, musicians, comedians, night owls, and people who had no particular interest in going home early.

Over the decades, the Ale House became a second home for generations of Chicago characters. Its proximity to Second City helped make it a favorite stop for comedians and performers, but the real draw has always been the room itself: the regulars, the bartenders, the stories, the late nights, and the sense that everyone inside has wandered into a piece of Chicago that refuses to be cleaned up for company.

In 1971, after a fire damaged the original location, the Ale House made one of the most fitting moves in bar history: regulars helped carry the bar itself across North Avenue to its current home. What was supposed to be temporary became permanent, and the Ale House kept going — changed by history, but not by much.

Today, the walls are as famous as the drinks. Chicago artist Bruce Elliott’s portraits of regulars, politicians, celebrities, and assorted public figures cover the room, turning the Ale House into something between a tavern, a gallery, a confession booth, and a very funny argument you walked into halfway through. Bon Appétit once described it as “not just a dive bar; it’s a museum,” which feels about right — though probably not the kind of museum where anyone tells you to keep your voice down.

The Ale House has also earned its place in the wider story of Chicago comedy. Generations of performers have passed through, and Stephen Colbert is among the many familiar names connected to the bar. He has recalled meeting Conan O’Brien at the Old Town Ale House, which feels about right for a place where a regular night can turn into a story someone is still telling decades later.

The Ale House has been praised by writers, travelers, locals, and people who know better than to trust bars that look too new. Roger Ebert famously called it “the best bar in the world that I know about,” a line that still captures what people love about the place: not perfection, but character.

In 2016, The Old Town Ale House took its place on a larger stage when Anthony Bourdain featured it in the Chicago episode of Parts Unknown. Rather than using the city as a backdrop for clichés, Bourdain approached Chicago through its people — and many of those people were found right here. The episode drew on the Ale House, its regulars, and Bruce Elliott’s art as a gateway into the city’s humor, toughness, politics, food, and contradictions. For anyone who knows the bar, it made sense: if you want a polished version of Chicago, there are plenty of places to look. If you want the real thing, pull up a stool.

And then there’s the jukebox. The Ale House has one of the great bar jukeboxes in the city: carefully curated, heavy on jazz, and rounded out with blues, rock, and whatever else belongs in the room. At any given time, you might hear Miles Davis, David Bowie, Patti Smith, John Coltrane, Talking Heads, Ella Fitzgerald, or something you forgot you loved until it came on. With roughly 80 CDs in rotation, the selection changes often, but the spirit stays the same: smart, soulful, a little unpredictable, and never an afterthought.

More than sixty years in, The Old Town Ale House remains what it has always been: a Chicago bar in the truest sense. No gimmicks. No reinvention. No need to explain itself too much. Just strong drinks, sharp conversation, good company, strange art, great music, and the kind of history you can still sit down inside.