Slot Machines for Bars in Roscoe Village, Chicago

History

Roscoe Village grew up around Riverview Park, an amusement park at Belmont and Western that billed itself as the world's largest. Dozens of businesses opened along Belmont, Roscoe and Western to serve its visitors, and about half were bars and taverns. A few dozen park workers built homes, mostly on old greenhouse land. Around 1920 the first building boom tore down nearly every greenhouse and put up frame houses and brick and greystone two-flats, and a majority of the newcomers were second-generation German-Americans, mostly tradesmen and factory workers. The Depression pushed unemployment above 40 percent, and the housing stock began to decline. The park shut at the end of 1967, and by the early 1980s a shopping center and a police district office stood on its site. Buyers had begun restoring the two-flats by the mid-1970s, and a run of garage fires in 1977 led neighbors to form a block club that grew into the neighborhood group. A Roscoe Street summer festival started in 1986, and in 1988 the group renamed itself Roscoe Village Neighbors. The conversion of the Eversharp pencil factory at 1800 West Roscoe into condominiums caught the whole city's attention and lifted property values.

The area today

Roscoe Village has Roscoe Street as its main business avenue and a housing mix of brownstones, bungalows and factory spaces converted to condos. The Lakeview Roscoe Village Chamber of Commerce, whose area covers both neighborhoods, lists the Brown Line's Southport, Paulina and Addison stations and CTA buses on Addison, Ashland, Belmont, Damen, Diversey and Western; the Paulina stop sits on Lincoln Avenue. Roscoe Village Neighbors lists Fellger Park at Belmont and Damen, Hamlin Park with its fieldhouse and pool, and Park 544, a playground at Addison, Lincoln and Ravenswood that opened in 2009.

Bars and restaurants here

Block Club's 2026 patio guide describes Village Tap, at 2055 W. Roscoe, as a neighborhood tavern with a sidewalk patio and a beer garden, and Volo, at 2008 W. Roscoe, as a restaurant and wine bar whose patio is tucked under a roof with overhead lanterns. The same guide lists Roscoe Village Pub, open since 2014 at 2159 W. Addison, for its picnic-table patio and brick fireplace. Roscoe Village Neighbors held the 31st Retro on Roscoe at Roscoe Street and Damen Avenue in September 2026, with three stages across a six-block stretch.