Qualla: Green Mill Cocktail Lounge

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0. Whenever Al Capone walked through the door, the bandleader stopped whatever he was playing and launched into Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." The booth Capone favored still sits in the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, strategically positioned with sightlines to both the front and back entrances -- a practical seating choice for a man with enemies. More than a century after its founding as a beer garden on Broadway in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, the Green Mill remains one of the most celebrated jazz clubs in America, a place where the walls remember Prohibition, throat-slashings, and the birth of the poetry slam, and where the bartender will still tell you to shut up if you talk during a set.

Image: Kenneth C. Zirkel | CC BY-SA 4.0

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge: From Beer Garden to Green Mill

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amerique, CC BY 3.0. The story begins in the late 1890s with Pop Morse's Roadhouse, a saloon founded by Charles E. "Pop" Morse at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Broadway, then called Evanston Avenue. The location was strategic: mourners and visitors from the nearby Graceland and Saint Boniface cem...

Image: Amerique | CC BY 3.0

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge: Speakeasy Rules

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dronepicr, CC BY 2.0. When Prohibition arrived in 1920, the Green Mill adapted rather than closed. In 1921, the federal government and the City of Chicago filed lawsuits against the establishment for selling alcohol and allowing music and dancing past 1 a.m. The federal suit was dismissed, but the Gre...

Image: dronepicr | CC BY 2.0

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge: The Night They Cut Joe E. Lewis

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Green Mill's most notorious episode came on November 9, 1927. Joe E. Lewis, a young cabaret singer and comedian, had been the club's star attraction for a year. When his contract expired, Lewis signed with a rival venue, the Rendezvous Lounge, directly defying the Outfit's ex...

Image: Kenneth C. Zirkel | CC BY-SA 4.0

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge: Dark Years and Resurrection

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marc Heiden - User: (WT-shared) Gorilla Jones at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 3.0. After Prohibition ended and World War II reshaped American nightlife, the Green Mill drifted. The Batsis brothers purchased it in 1940 and sold it in 1960 to Steve Brend, who had worked for Jack McGurn as a youth and was known as the "Mayor of Uptown" for his gregarious storytell...

Image: Marc Heiden - User: (WT-shared) Gorilla Jones at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 3.0

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge: The Mill Reborn

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fareed_Haque_at_Green_Mill_Jazz_Club_Chicago.JPG: Shankar86 derivative work: Clusternote, CC BY-SA 3.0. Everything changed in 1986 when Dave Jemilo, a South Sider and former owner of the bar Deja Vu, purchased the Green Mill and poured his energy into revitalization. Jemilo restored the club's identity as a serious jazz venue, booking top performers and enforcing a house rule that ...

Image: Fareed_Haque_at_Green_Mill_Jazz_Club_Chicago.JPG: Shankar86 derivative work: Clusternote | CC BY-SA 3.0