Requiem for a Great Neighborhood Bar

Yesterday, my neighborhood bar (and favorite bar in Chicago), Rocks, announced that it will be closing May 7 and moving to a bigger location in North Center at 4138 N. Lincoln Avenue.  When I heard the news, I was devastated.  I feel like I've just been kicked in the balls right before being dumped.  Seriously, I've haven't listened to The Band's "It Makes No Difference" this many times in one day since some bitch broke up with me in college.

I have been going to Rocks since Jester and I moved back to Chicago eight years ago.  We have been lucky enough to live within walking distance that whole time.  I've watched both Blackhawks Stanley Cup clinchers there, played trivia there probably over 100 times, sung the first karaoke song ever sung there, gone to multiple St. Patrick's Days there, taken my kids there to eat countless times, and been an ardent supporter and promoter of the bar.

Rocks was truly a great Chicago neighborhood bar.  It was tucked away from any main thoroughfares, in the middle of a residential neighborhood at the corner of Schubert and Lakewood.  They had great food (especially the burgers and wings), a great beer list, a great whiskey selection, and a friendly staff.  You can watch a game there, you can take your kids there for dinner, they had great bar trivia on Tuesday nights and karaoke on Friday nights, it wasn't douchy, and, best of all, it wasn't trying to be a Four Corners or Bar One bar.  (For you non-Chicagoans, those are two bar groups that own a bunch of usually large-sized bars in Chicago that mostly cater to the mid-to-late '20s crowd, and tend to have too much DJ music.)

Rocks' regulars can't help but feel a little pissed off and left in the lurch.  I'm obviously upset about this, and I know several of my other friends who go there regularly and live nearby are also peeved.  I was in there last night, having what will likely be my last of their excellent burgers at this location, and some other guy walked in, went straight to the bar, and said to the manager behind the bar, "Brad, WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Trying to quell its angry patrons, Rocks said that the new location will be "bigger and better" and will have the same staff, menu, and drink selections, but I think that misses the point.  What made Rocks great wasn't just that it had a great menu, drink selection, and staff.  It was that it wasn't on a main drag.  It was a neighborhood bar that had all these great things, and that's why people flocked to it and kept coming back.  It can't be a neighborhood bar, in the true Chicago sense of the term, on Lincoln Avenue, and that's too bad because Rocks will lose a big part of what made it so great.

Unfortunately, Rocks is also going to lose most of its regulars from its Lincoln Park location.  That's just a geographic fact.  It's hard to be a regular when the bar you can walk to in 5-10 minutes becomes a bar that you now have to drive to.  All of the families and neighborhood residents that regularly go to Rocks aren't going to drive/cab to North Center for dinner, bar trivia, a drink after work, or a game on a random weeknight on a regular basis.  Sure, Rocks will get new regulars in its new location, and that's great for them (both for Rocks and the new regulars), but those of us left in Lincoln Park will have a huge void that needs to be filled.

I'll try to get up there when I can, but I'm certainly not going to be able to go there as often as I do now that it's a 5-minute walk away.  I can't get home from work and say, "hey, let's go to Rocks for dinner" because by the time we get all the kids in the car, drive up there, try to find a parking spot on Lincoln, and sit down to eat, it'll be the kids' bed time.  And obviously, the frequency of my trivia, karaoke, and other visits will decrease too, due to the distance.

As you might imagine, I am anxious to see what will go into Rocks's location.  Given that it's already set up as a bar, has a kitchen, has a built-in crowd of regulars who are stinging, and, most importantly, has a liquor license, something else will undoubtedly go in there, hopefully this summer, so the patio can get used.  I'm sure I'll go there often, but it just won't be the same because it won't be Rocks, where I had eight years to get to know the bartenders, managers, and servers.

If all of this sounds like sour grapes, you're goddamn right it is.  I'm not happy about this at all.  I was counting on having a great neighborhood bar that I could go to for decades, and now I won't have that (or at least it won't be called Rocks).

Don't get me wrong.  I'm happy for the owners (who I know), and I wish them all the success in the world in North Center.  I just wish they would have been able to keep the original location too, and I'm sure they would have kept both if they could. 

Then again, perhaps this is the opportunity and kick in the pants I need to open my own bar.  I do know a great open location with a built-in customer base.  That settles it.  Coming this summer to 1301 W. Schubert:  Rock and Roll All Knight -- Chicago's one and only KISS- and IU-themed neighborhood bar.