South Loop week has come to an official close at YoChicago, but once again, we feel like we barely scratched the surface, so we’ll keep the posts coming while avoiding the term “South Loop fortnight,” which Anglophile staffer young Nathaniel continues to argue for. At least one YoChicagoan lamented the lack of nightlife in the South Loop last week, so we set out one recent evening to see what’s changed in the neighborhood and if the options for dining and entertainment (drinking) have improved since we last did any serious carousing in these parts.
The results of our highly unscientific, mildly innebriated research were mixed. Compared to its status six or seven years ago, the South Loop has turned into a regular Vegas. The metaphor is apt in some ways (completely inane in most) because like Sin City, the South Loop was, not so long ago, a complete desert. There was nowhere to get groceries, few appealing places to drink and even fewer to eat. It’s still sparse compared to more settled neighborhoods, but Vegas wasn’t built in a day, and the South Loop won’t turn into a hot destination full of restaurants and bars overnight (or over 20 years, apparently). This is a neighborhood very much – and quite literally – under construction.
We started our evening at 13th and Wabash, a block that’s become something of a restaurant row – by South Loop standards. For dinner, we considered Opera, whose modern interpretations of Chinese dishes include Maine lobster spring rolls, Peking duck and crisp orange beef with lotus, scallion, snow peas and a sweet orange-sesame glaze. The food is terrific (and the wild decor might make Opera worth a trip even if it wasn’t), but we’ve eaten there before and frankly, it was a bit much for the budget on this night (entrees run $16 to $26 on average).
Gioco, also created by local restaurateur extraordinaire Jerry Kleiner, sits across the street from his Opera restaurant, but we’ve been there too. Gioco is cozy, with exposed brick walls, high ceilings, warm lighting and a long, comfortable bar. The Tuscan and Umbrian dishes offer a nice mix of pasta, pizzas and some killer steaks, including the 40-ounce portherhouse for two and the New York strip pictured below.
Instead, we opted for Zapatista Cantina, which is directly south of Opera and the newest of the dining options at the South Loop’s hottest culinary corner. Physically, Zapatista is a nice place. The ceilings are high, colors are festive and there’s a long comfortable bar with a stone back. You can get a burrito for $9.99 and a rustica margarita (Mezcal, GranGala orange liqueur and fresh lime juice) for $8. The food was good if not great, and the salsa – smokey as the rustica – was terrific. Good margaritas and salsa can go a long way in a Mexican restaurant. The ceviche appetizer also rates a mention.
Several places on the 1300 block of South Wabash have outdoor seating, which dramatically improves the character of this famously dingy street in warmer weather. Alas, on this chilly night, no one was eating outside. As you can see from the above photos, though, Zapatista was packed inside, and we needed a break from the throngs. We should admit here that this was a Wednesday night, but still, a number of South Loop restaurants and bars we checked out were all but empty from 8 p.m. to midnight – with one notable and slightly disturbing exception (more on that later). Sick of our own company, we headed south.
We stopped outside the Chicago Firehouse, another fine South Loop restaurant at 1401 S Michigan Ave, to snap a photo. Matt O’Malley’s Mainstay Hospitality, which also owns Zapatista and the Wabash Tap, opened the Firehouse well before the current construction boom, and South Loopers are fiercely loyal to him for believing in the little neighborhood that could when other business people doubted that the small residential population here could support anything new. O’Malley also runs Grace O’Malley’s, the comfortable Irish pub named after our favorite female Irish pirate across the street.
We skipped Grace O’Malley’s in favor of the Weather Mark Tavern, a three-month-old nautical-themed bar serving pub food at 1503 S Michigan Ave. So, if you’re watching these addresses, it’s not as if there’s a bar or restaurant every 50 feet in the South Loop, but the neighborhood is working toward having something on every block, which is a far cry from the sort of options you have in Lake View or Lincoln Park or Albany Park, but still a vast improvement from the choices here in the mid- or even late ’90s.
The question is how some of these places will do. The Weather Mark, which is only three months old, had just five or six patrons sitting at the bar when we walked in, and one woman in a booth typing on a laptop. We couldn’t make our minds up to the whole nautical theme. I liked the multi-toned blue walls (like waves, get it?), but the actual sails separating booths seemed a little over the top. One observer noted, “It’s less yacht club and more Supercuts than I thought it would be.” Maybe this place will get the best of both worlds, game watchers before 10 p.m. and club-goers late night, but it’s just as likely to turn off both sets for being neither rowdy enough as a sports bar nor chic enough as a lounge. Craig, the owner (pictured above and below in white chef’s shirt), seems like a good guy, and the bar has a small core of regulars already, but like any new restaurant, this one faces an uphill struggle.
Still searching for signs of South Loop life, we headed to the new Velvet Lounge, 67 E Cermak Rd. We were thrilled when the old Velvet Lounge, a divey mainstay of the South Loop known for its live, eclectic jazz found new digs in the neighborhood. We want to like the new space. Really. But it ain’t easy. The location is in a new single-story brick building that has the look and character of a strip mall. Inside, the room is painted in bright colors with a pseudo-loft aesthetic, an exposed ceiling and chairs from a VFW post or budget wedding banquet hall. It’s only been open a month or two, so kinks (like the white paper covering the windows) are still being worked out. Once again – you’ll be shocked by this – the joint was nearly empty. The sound is good, though, and the crowd is appreciative, and the talented quartet on stage played their hearts out. Fred Anderson, who owns the Velvet and was sitting at the door collecting the $7 cover this evening, is a pillar of the Chicago jazz scene and a great musician in his own right, so if there’s one place in the South Loop you should support, it’s the Velvet Lounge. Who knows – if enough of you do, the room might actually get crowded enough to be palatable.
Another fine dining option in the South Loop pairs succulent cuts of steak with the tart goodness of homemade lemonade – a classic combination – at Baba’s Famous Steak & Lemonade, next door to the Velvet Lounge. Mmmm steak AND lemonade.
We finished up the night at Tantrum, a bar that won the hearts of many a South Looper when it opened at 1023 S State St at a time when the neighborhood pickings were very slim indeed. Tantrum was the first place we came to that was almost crowded – plenty of seats available but plenty taken too, and a smattering of dancers in the back of the bar periodically kicking it up when songs they liked were played. Turns out, though, Tantrum was crowded because it was college beer night – $3 drafts for college kids (is that what college beer deals have come to? What happened to the 50-cent draft?). We were bemused enough to sit, for a couple of beers, through the hooplah, which included two college boys removing their shirts to give their female friend a disturbing lap dance in the middle of the dance floor.
Our bartender, Nazaneen, took good care of us, and had perhaps less patience for the craziness than we did, though she only recently left Columbia College herself (most of the college kids in on the cheap beer were from Columbia). She is a big fan of the South Loop and if we’re lucky, will soon be contributing her own thoughts to this journal. Plenty of people in the bar gave us their thoughts on the neighborhood, by the way, once we started snapping pictures. To a person, they are fiercely loyal to the South Loop.
College night at Tantrum, by the way, does not do the bar justice. It’s both chic and comfortable – exposed brick, comfy arm chairs and couches, glazed walls and a well-dressed but unpretentious crowd, mostly from the neighborhood. Give it a try on a night other than Wednesday – unless those $3 beers are sounding irresistible.
