SCHALLER’S IS GONE

5/1/17

Upon learning of the sudden and tragic demise of Schaller’s, Chicago’s oldest continually operating bar/restaurant and one of my favorite places in town, I was, first, stunned and, second, prompted to recall an old song, an old post, and nearly a lifetime of memories.

The song is “Daley’s Gone” by Steve Goodman; it’s one of Mr. Goodman’s best and I encourage you to google it or even to buy it on I-tunes or whatever medium you use to purchase music.   Why did Schaller’s demise remind me of that all but forgotten Goodman classic?   First, the sadness that permeated that song is close to the sadness that permeates yours truly, and most of the Quinn household, on learning of the demise of that great old neighborhood place.   Second, Richard J. Daley (aka Richard I or the real Mayor Daley) lived a few blocks from the place and our path from Schaller’s to whatever they call Comiskey Park nowadays ran right past the old bungalow on 35^th and Lowe.  Furthermore, Schaller’s sits (or, I guess now, sat) directly across from the 11^th Ward Regular Democratic Organization headquarters, where the late great Mayor Daley plied his trade for so many years.  Whether Mr. Daley, or any of his progeny, ate or drank at Schaller’s I don’t know, but I’d be surprised if he, or they, didn’t.

The post if which I am reminded is DINING OUT SHOULD MEAN NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE HUNGRY:  AN INADVERTENT REVIEW OF KEN’SON WESTERN AVENUE, which I wrote in November, 2015.   I mentioned Schaller’s only in passing in that piece, comparing it favorably to Ken’s, a similar restaurant in my old neighborhood, Beverly, broadly defined, a neighborhood doubtless known by the denizens of Bridgeport, where Schaller’s was (sigh) located, as “that other Irish neighborhood.”   But I digress.   What I didn’t explicitly say in that post is that Ken’s, a decent enough place, simply doesn’t compare to Schaller’s for prices and character and, in most cases, for food.

Schaller’s is one of those places that I’ve gone to often enough but not often enough.   Over the last twenty or so years, our visits to Schaller’s have been limited to pre-Sox game dinners.   Not only is the food good and the company better, but one of the perks offered by Schaller’s was free parking for the Sox game for those who ate at the place before the game.   Those who know yours truly well can imagine my dismay at now having to pay to park for a Sox game, even at the discounted $10 rate charged in neighborhood lots.   One supposes it could be worse; I could have to pay to park at a Cubs game, but, again, I digress. 

Despite going so rarely over the last few years, I can remember both my first visit to Schaller’s and my last visit to Schaller’s.   The first was with my dad when I was eight years old after, ironically, a Bears game.   We drove straight down Halsted Street (My dad “knew some people” and hence we were able to park at the police station on the corner of Halsted and Addison for Bears games, the only occasion at the time that would bring us to Wrigley Field.) the 73 blocks from the station to Schaller’s and enjoyed a meal of butt steak, which has long been a favorite of the original “real food” lovers who frequent places like Schaller’s and the aforementioned Ken’s.   The formal name of Schaller’s is “Schaller’s Pump.”   When we got home after eating there, my eight-year-old self proudly told my mom that dad took us to “The Pump Room” for dinner after the game.   My mom was appalled and retorted with something like “Dick, you took Mark and Dick to the Pump Room?   You never take me to the Pump Room!”   As many of you know, the recently closed Pump Room was, at the time, probably the swankiest restaurant in Chicago and thus not a place frequented by the Quinns.   My dad tried to calm the situation by explaining “No, Gen…we went to Pump, Schaller’s Pump, not The Pump Room.”   Whether my mom believed him or not I don’t know, but my dad thought my confusion about the similar names of eating establishments was pretty funny, especially given the contrast in the atmospheres of the two similarly named places.   Many years later, when I was making some good money, I took my parents out to the Pump Room and related that story to them.   Neither remembered it, but at least my dad thought it was more than mildly amusing.   Neither one liked the Pump Room much, though; they thought it was too much money for what you got (The apple apparently doesn’t fall far from the tree.) and I could tell that they, and my dad especially, thought their hot shot son was getting a little too fancy.   They were, of course, right; we should have gone to Schaller’s four or five times for the same money.   A few years later, when I was dating the woman who would later become my wife, I took her to Pump Room.   While she liked it, her reaction was somewhat similar to that of my parents.  It was probably at about that time that I was convinced that I had to marry this woman, which turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made.    She now is a big fan of Schaller’s; man, do I love this woman!   But I digress.

My last visit to Schaller’s, appropriately, was with my son, a young man of whom my Dad was especially proud.   Mark, Jr., and I have made a practice of going to a Sox game every year and dropping some serious coin (about what one would spend for the cheap seats at Wrigley) for some really good seats at whatever they are calling Comiskey Park at the time.  One time we were sitting within a few rows of the owner of the visiting Houston Astros and those types don’t sit in the bleachers.   Another time we were sitting right next to the Sox dugout, about where Mayor Daley used to sit at Comiskey Park, which is what they called Comiskey Park at the time, and he had the best seats in the house.  The point is that the seats Mark and I get are terrific seats by any measure.   We made a habit of going to Schaller’s before these games in order to get a great meal at a great price among great people and to take advantage of the free parking perk.    So we found ourselves there last summer, Mark enjoying the butt steak dinner and I diverting to the corned beef and cabbage special, which, as you might guess, was outstanding.   Our waitress was fantastic, as usual, very congenial and helpful and referred to us as “gentlemen,” as in “What will you have tonight, gentlemen?,” “Are you ready for the check, gentlemen?”, etc.

The particular game we saw that evening was rain delayed…very rain delayed.   While I would have left when it was clear that restarting the game was hopeless, Mark insisted on staying.   We had a great time exploring every nook and cranny of whatever they called Comiskey Park at the time.   I have to admit it is an impressive place.   By the time they officially called the game, it was after midnight and Mark and I were among the, oh, dozen or so people remaining at the park.   Having been forced to leave, we made our way west on 35^th Street in the now waning rain.   Proceeding south on Lowe, we walked west on 37^th.   Who did we meet at the corner of 37^th and Lowe?   The waitress who had waited on us six or so hours ago and now greeted us with “Gentlemen, you too are real fans!”   We offered her a ride to wherever she was going, but she lived only a block away, closer to home than the three blocks to the Schaller’s parking lot.   Not having eaten for such a long period of time, we stopped, for the first time, at Johnny O’s hot dog stand on 35^th and Morgan and picked up a few dogs for the ride home.   We loved the dogs, but didn’t think that the admittedly terrific Johnny O’s might have to replace Schaller’s as our pre-Sox game dining spot.

There are other memories of Schaller’s, like

•  The time, when Mark got up to use the bathroom, that our waitress made a special point of coming over to the table in his absence to tell my wife and me what a polite, respectful young man we had raised.   You NEVER forget things like that.
•  The occasion on which, on our walk from Schaller’s to the game on a beautiful summer evening when I was regaling our daughters with tales from Chicago’s political history as we walked north on Lowe, approaching the Daley bungalow, our girls commented that the neighborhood was “cute,” a term that I had never heard used to describe Bridgeport in my many years of acquaintance with this neighborhood.   I could not wait to call one of my old Bridgeport buddies the next day and tell him “Hey, Pat, my girls think your old neighborhood is cute!”   He was not amused.   But things change.

Things indeed do change.   It looks like Schaller’s will never re-open.   The papers talk about the property tax problems the place faces after Jack Schaller died and hence was no longer able to claim senior citizen and homestead exemptions on the bar and the apartment upstairs in which he lived, a practice that may have been questionable even when he was alive.  But the tax numbers that the papers talk about are not all that huge, though no one knows the magnitude of such problems, if they exist at all.  One could also imagine dark conspiracies involving Rahm Emanuel’s dislike for Bridgeport, and places like it, and his vision of a “new Chicago” in which old neighborhood places like Schaller’s are replaced by trendy “night clubs” with big covers, fancy drinks, and food best characterized by small portions and inedible “organic” ingredients.    But such flights of fancy are a little too out there even for the likes of yours truly.

No, one suspects the demise of Schaller’s has more to do with the inevitable generational change in family owned places like Schaller’s and the place’s real estate value in a rapidly “gentrifying” Bridgeport than with anything else. (I’ve always thought that only formerly run down, poor, and/or crime-ridden neighborhoods gentrified.   Bridgeport never met any of those criteria, so how could it gentrify?   I suppose when one looks at things from the Chicago media’s perspective (i.e., never venture south of Congress unless you’re headed to Hyde Park or to Midway to catch a flight to one of the coasts), any neighborhood on the south side needs gentrifying, but I, again, digress.  At least I do so parenthetically this time.)  Perhaps we’ll never know.    But why Schaller’s closed is not as important as that Schaller’s closed.   And the shame of that event transcends Schaller’s.   The city of Chicago, as we once knew it and as embodied by neighborhood saloons like Schaller’s, is dying.   Some people call this progress; they prefer the trendiest, “just gotta go there” chi-chi establishments, or embarrassments, that now characterize the city.  And some people consider a tofu dog with arugula trimmings to be the new Chicago dog.

O tempora, o mores!

LATE NOTE:

Between my writing the first draft of this piece and editing it for publication, my wife and I listened to the local ABC evening news.  On a report on the closing of Schaller’s, anchor Kathy Brock referred to Schaller’s as “…the legendary south side dive bar…”  (Emphasis mine) Dive bar?   Dive bar!  I’ve been in plenty of dive bars over the years, and Schaller’s was decidedly NOT one of them!   I rest my case on the Chicago media.