Slot Machines for Bars in Andersonville, Chicago

History

After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Swedes who had lost their homes trekked north, and Foster Avenue and Clark Street became a center of Swedish settlement. The land was farmland along Green Bay Road, outside the city limits and beyond a post-fire rule that new homes be built of brick or stone, so Swedish carpenters built in wood. Irish, German and Luxembourger neighbors lived alongside them, and many Swedes worked in the trades. Chicago annexed Lake View, Andersonville included, in 1889, and substantial buildings went up in earnest after 1900. Swedish-run theaters, bakeries, shops and banks thrived, the Calo Theater opened in 1915, and Simon Lundberg founded Simon's Tavern in 1934. By the 1950s merchants saw customers leaving for the suburbs. In 1964 the business association renamed itself the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, and Midsommarfest began in June 1965. Mexican, Korean, Greek, Persian and Thai families settled here too, and in the late 1980s gay and lesbian newcomers arrived seeking cheaper homes and apartments.

The area today

Clark Street is the main street. The Andersonville Chamber of Commerce says the neighborhood is known for its Swedish roots, historic architecture and a network of independent businesses, and describes it as home to one of the city's largest LGBTQ+ populations. The commercial district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. The Swedish American Museum occupies the old Lind Hardware building at 5211 N. Clark St. A wooden water tank built in 1927 once sat on that roof; a hard winter damaged it, it came down in March 2014, and a fiberglass replica went up in 2017. Each June, Midsommarfest takes over Clark Street, with a maypole raised in the middle of the street and, by the museum's count, nearly 50,000 people.

Bars and restaurants here

On Clark the rooms run from old tavern to beer garden. Simon's Tavern at 5210 N. Clark was founded in 1934, and Block Club's 2024 dive bar guide notes its neon herring sign and Christmas glögg. Hopleaf at 5148 N. Clark pairs a Belgian-inspired menu with a patio and beer garden, and Pizza Lobo at 5457 N. Clark is an old-school tavern with an expansive patio. Corners turn over: Reza's, the Persian restaurant at Berwyn and Clark, opened in 1983 and closed in 2023.