Slot Machines for Bars in Little Village, Chicago

History

The name Little Village began with business owners from the neighborhood's European communities. In 1964, led by real estate broker Richard Dolejs, they proposed it to set their community apart from North Lawndale. The name took hold; Dolejs's plan to redecorate storefronts in a vaguely Central European style mostly did not. Mexicans had been arriving in South Lawndale as early as the 1940s, and from the 1960s into the 1980s a wave came from Mexico, many displaced from other parts of the city, such as the Near West Side, by urban renewal and the University of Illinois Circle Campus. A 2021 City of Chicago landmark report says that wave reversed the population decline between 1960 and 1980 and revived retail on 26th Street, once called Bohemian Broadway and now Calle México. A University of Chicago Library history says Mexican-owned businesses replaced older Bohemian and Polish ones. In 1981 the American Legion and Mayor Jane Byrne dedicated a plaza on 26th Street to Manuel Pérez Jr., raised in Little Village and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on Luzon in 1945. The Little Village Chamber of Commerce has represented local businesses since 1989.

The area today

The Encyclopedia of Chicago says residents call Little Village the "Mexico of the Midwest." The same City report describes the stretch of 26th Street running west to Kostner Avenue as the commercial and cultural heart, a dense strip of small shops, bakeries, restaurants and offices run by and catering to the Mexican community. WBEZ reported in 2015, citing Crain's Chicago Business, that a two-mile stretch of the street was the city's second-highest-grossing shopping district, after Michigan Avenue. The chamber stages the Mexican Independence Day parade each September, from Albany to Kostner. The Encyclopedia says Little Village hosts the largest annual Latino parade in Chicago each September, drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators. In 2001 parents and community members held a 19-day hunger strike to press Chicago Public Schools to build a local high school; the Little Village Lawndale High School campus opened in 2005 with four small schools.

Bars and restaurants here

On 26th Street between California and Kenton avenues, you work inside Special Service Area 25, which the City Council created in December 2003; it also takes in parts of 25th, 31st, Kedzie and Pulaski. The chamber's events on the street include the September parade, with the El Grito 5K starting at the Manuel Pérez Jr. Plaza that morning, and Xempasúchil, a two-day Day of the Dead event with ofrendas inside local businesses, announced for October 31 and November 1, 2026. It also holds a tree lighting every December. The chamber's office is at 3610 W. 26th Street.