Video Gaming in Chicago's 50th Ward — bars, licensing, status

History

Potawatomi villages stood here in the seventeenth century, until a series of treaties between 1816 and 1829 forced them to abandon their claims. German and Luxembourger farmers settled the land in the 1830s and 1840s, and a small community called Ridgeville grew up around Ridge and Devon avenues. West Ridge incorporated as a village in 1890 and joined Chicago in 1893. As growth quickened after 1900, brickyards moved to the area near present-day Kedzie Avenue, where sand and clay were plentiful, and drew Scandinavian and German workers. After World War I, brick bungalows and two-flats filled the blocks, a business district formed along Devon Avenue, and the population rose from about 7,500 in 1920 to almost 40,000 by 1930. A large number of Jewish families arrived after World War II. A first wave of South Asian immigrants came after the 1965 immigration act, and as Jewish families moved out to the suburbs, South Asian newcomers took over vacant storefronts on Devon. To the southwest, North Park began as a village platted in 1855, settled by German and Swedish vegetable farmers, and bungalows and two-flats replaced its prairie in the 1920s.

The area today

Ald. Debra Silverstein represents the 50th Ward from a ward office at 2949 W. Devon Ave. The ward is mostly West Ridge, also called West Rogers Park, with a smaller piece of North Park to the southwest. Devon Avenue runs east and west through it. WBEZ describes a mile-long stretch of Devon, from about California Avenue to Damen Avenue, as Little India, and the ward takes in part of that strip. Bakeries, synagogues and a Jewish community center remain nearby. On March 12, 2026, the alderperson chaired the City Council's License and Consumer Protection Committee when it voted to reject two ordinances that would have banned video gambling in six other wards, WTTW News reported.

Bars and restaurants here

Devon Avenue is the ward's dining and shopping corridor. WBEZ places South Asian bakeries and restaurants along the Little India stretch, among grocery stores, sari shops and jewelry stores, and reports that visitors from other parts of the city and across the region come for a day of shopping or dining. By the early 2000s, it adds, South Asian families were coming to the strip to shop and eat before heading home to the suburbs. The Encyclopedia of Chicago calls West Ridge's economic base primarily commercial, with commercial centers serving Jewish, Middle Eastern, Indian, Pakistani and Korean customers.