Video Gaming in Chicago's 5th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Hyde Park began in 1853, when New York lawyer Paul Cornell bought 300 acres between 51st and 55th Streets and deeded 60 of them to the Illinois Central Railroad in exchange for a station. Dutch farmers were Woodlawn's first residents in the 1850s. British railroad and steel-mill workers settled Essex, Bryn Mawr, Parkside and Windsor Park, the settlements that became South Shore. Grand Crossing began to develop after a train accident in 1853, at what is now 75th Street and South Chicago Avenue, killed 18 people. Chicago annexed all of it in 1889 with Hyde Park Township. The University of Chicago was created in the early 1890s, and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park spurred hundreds of residential and commercial buildings in Hyde Park and Woodlawn. Former Washington Park residents established the South Shore Country Club on the lakefront, which excluded Black and Jewish people; the Park District later bought it and made it a cultural center. In 1973, activists took over management of South Shore Bank after blocking its move to the Loop, and its reinvestment brought residential and commercial revival.

The area today

Ald. Desmon C. Yancy represents the 5th Ward from a ward office at 2230 E. 71st St. Yancy won the April 2023 runoff to succeed Ald. Leslie Hairston, who retired after 24 years in office. The ward takes in parts of Hyde Park, Woodlawn, South Shore and Greater Grand Crossing, including the stretch of Jackson Park where the Obama Presidential Center stands at 6001 S. Stony Island Ave. The South Shore Cultural Center sits on the lakefront at 7059 S. South Shore Dr. Metra Electric serves the area with stops at Hyde Park (51st to 53rd Streets), 55th-56th-57th Street, Bryn Mawr at Jeffery Boulevard and South Shore near Yates Boulevard.

Bars and restaurants here

The ward's liquor-licensed establishments cluster on 53rd and 55th Streets in Hyde Park, with more along Stony Island Avenue, the lakefront, 71st Street at Jeffery Boulevard, and South Chicago Avenue near the 75th Street station. Block Club's June 2026 dining guide, written for Obama Center visitors, sends them to 53rd and 55th for a cafeteria, a Southern dining room whose bar is known for a weekday happy hour, Neapolitan pizza and an African-diaspora kitchen, and to the Cultural Center's restaurant for brunch. Further south, Lee's Unleaded Blues on South Chicago Avenue reopened in 2024 after a long hiatus.