Video Gaming in Chicago's 49th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Irishman Phillip Rogers bought roughly 1,600 acres of government land between the late 1830s and his death in 1856, and part of it became the basis of Rogers Park. His son-in-law, Patrick Touhy, subdivided land near what is now Lunt and Ridge Avenues in 1872, and by 1878 enough settlers had arrived to incorporate a village. Chicago annexed the village in 1893. Late in the 1800s, Rogers Park residents took pride in a "dry" community where liquor was outlawed, a contrast with neighboring West Ridge, which had several taverns.

The Northwestern Elevated opened the Howard station in 1908, and the population jumped. Builders turned to multiunit dwellings, and Rogers Park became a community of renters. Commercial districts grew along Clark Street and around the four L stations, and four large movie palaces stood in Rogers Park in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1906 the Jesuits bought land to expand St. Ignatius College, now Loyola University Chicago, and Mundelein College opened in 1930. Later arrivals from Eastern Europe, Asia and the Americas made Rogers Park one of Chicago's most diverse neighborhoods.

The area today

Ald. Maria E. Hadden represents the 49th Ward from a ward office at 1447 W. Morse Ave. The ward takes in, roughly, Rogers Park, the lakefront neighborhood on Chicago's Far North Side. The Red Line stops at Loyola, Morse, Jarvis and Howard, and Loyola University Chicago anchors the neighborhood's southeast corner. Loyola Park, with its beach and walking trail, sits on the lake at Greenleaf Avenue. Chicago Councilmatic lists Hadden among the sponsors of an ordinance to disallow additional video gaming licenses in five wards, the 49th among them; the City Council's License and Consumer Protection Committee voted to reject it on March 12, 2026. Rogers Park's live-theater community has small stages near the Morse, Jarvis and Howard stops.

Bars and restaurants here

If your room is near the Morse stop, you work the Glenwood and Morse blocks: casual bars with room for a big group, with small theaters on the same streets. Jarvis Square, a stop north on the Red Line, is a smaller pocket of a pub, a cafe and restaurants. Clark Street from Howard toward Devon is the restaurant strip, where a Sun-Times neighborhood guide counted more than forty cuisines. Near Loyola, national chains serve the campus, with a few independent restaurants and bars around the stop and more along Sheridan Road. The Rogers Park Business Alliance administers special service areas for Howard Street and Jarvis Square, for Clark, Morse and Glenwood, and for Sheridan Road.