Cal's
07-30-04 | 10:49 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Arschgaudi
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 860
Likes: 11
From: Chicago (Beverly)
Bikes: Merckx Team SC, Masi (fixed), Merckx Cyclo-Cross
Cal's
The Bar Owners
John Cook
Published July 30, 2004
Walk into Cal's Liquors at the corner of Wells and Van Buren Streets 'round about 11 p.m. on any given Friday night, and you'll find yourself in a lone out-post of crashing noise and youthful ardor amid the quiet desolation that overtakes the southern edge of the Loop after dark.
On weekday afternoons, Cal's is a comfortably shabby corner dive that caters to a wildly mixed clientele -- pungent bike messengers who ply the Loop's byways share the bar with clean-cut speculators from the nearby Chicago Board of Trade.
"It's very, very eclectic -- we've had the presidents of companies, and we have a lot of street people come in too," says co-owner Fred Feirstein, standing behind the counter of the liquor store that adjoins the bar, busily calculating sales tax on a brown paper bag as dozens of commuters file in to pick up a few cans of beer for the train ride back to the suburbs.
But on Friday and Saturday nights, the paupers and the princes make way for post-punk hipsters. For most of its 57 years -- Fred Feirstein's father, George, opened Cal's in 1947, naming it after his other son, Cal, who now co-owns it with his brother -- Cal's was closed on the weekends, owing to the lack of eager patrons in the Loop after hours.
Four years ago, Fred's son Mike, who manages the bar and plays bass guitar in a variety of local rock bands, began booking local bands on weekend nights, transforming what Mike de-scribes as having once been "an old man's bar -- the kind of place where a three martini lunch would turn into 'Marge, I'm not coming back to the office,'" -- into a thriving rock scene.
There's no stage, no sound system (just a PA system for vocals), and payment for bands comes in the form of whatever happens to collect in a beat-up tip bucket that gets passed around during shows, but Mike's astute booking tastes -- you might find a local power-pop outfit such as Bleary, a country-rock band from Berkeley, Calif., or a neo-'80s synthesizer band from Vermont -- and the bar's raw, amps-on-the-floor vibe will reward a Saturday night foray into the Loop's deserted fringes.
John Cook
Published July 30, 2004
Walk into Cal's Liquors at the corner of Wells and Van Buren Streets 'round about 11 p.m. on any given Friday night, and you'll find yourself in a lone out-post of crashing noise and youthful ardor amid the quiet desolation that overtakes the southern edge of the Loop after dark.
On weekday afternoons, Cal's is a comfortably shabby corner dive that caters to a wildly mixed clientele -- pungent bike messengers who ply the Loop's byways share the bar with clean-cut speculators from the nearby Chicago Board of Trade.
"It's very, very eclectic -- we've had the presidents of companies, and we have a lot of street people come in too," says co-owner Fred Feirstein, standing behind the counter of the liquor store that adjoins the bar, busily calculating sales tax on a brown paper bag as dozens of commuters file in to pick up a few cans of beer for the train ride back to the suburbs.
But on Friday and Saturday nights, the paupers and the princes make way for post-punk hipsters. For most of its 57 years -- Fred Feirstein's father, George, opened Cal's in 1947, naming it after his other son, Cal, who now co-owns it with his brother -- Cal's was closed on the weekends, owing to the lack of eager patrons in the Loop after hours.
Four years ago, Fred's son Mike, who manages the bar and plays bass guitar in a variety of local rock bands, began booking local bands on weekend nights, transforming what Mike de-scribes as having once been "an old man's bar -- the kind of place where a three martini lunch would turn into 'Marge, I'm not coming back to the office,'" -- into a thriving rock scene.
There's no stage, no sound system (just a PA system for vocals), and payment for bands comes in the form of whatever happens to collect in a beat-up tip bucket that gets passed around during shows, but Mike's astute booking tastes -- you might find a local power-pop outfit such as Bleary, a country-rock band from Berkeley, Calif., or a neo-'80s synthesizer band from Vermont -- and the bar's raw, amps-on-the-floor vibe will reward a Saturday night foray into the Loop's deserted fringes.
07-30-04 | 11:30 AM
#4
Beausage is Beautiful
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 5,504
Likes: 13
From: Saitama, Japan
Bikes: Nabiis Alchemy
Never been....I may have to check this place out.
__________________
Yo. Everything I’m doing is linked on What’s up with Dave? but most of note currently is Somewhere in Japan.
Yo. Everything I’m doing is linked on What’s up with Dave? but most of note currently is Somewhere in Japan.
