COVID-19 has been hard on all businesses, especially in the hospitality sector. But arbitrary actions by Chicago city government leaders are putting a particular stranglehold on the city’s taverns (defined as bars without a food license).
In a recent order, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot restricted taverns to package sales only. She has also ordered package alcohol sales to end at 9 p.m., while letting bars with food licenses operate indoors with 25% capacity until 11 p.m. With this unfair and unscientific application of COVID-19 restrictions, no relief from the pandemic in sight, and winter fast approaching, taverns are running out of options to stay afloat.
I am a co-owner of Beermiscuous, a craft beer bottle shop and bar on the border between Chicago’s Lakeview and Lincoln Park neighborhoods. Late last year, the original owner approached the staff and asked if we’d like to buy the tavern (and its sister store in Highwood, Illinois) from him. This fateful business decision was finalized less than two weeks before we were forced to close our doors due to COVID-19.
Since then, every phase of our survival and potential recovery has been met with barricades that seem designed to push small businesses like mine further and further back. If nothing is done—and soon—seemingly flippant political decisions will result in enormous costs to many small businesses; livelihoods; and ultimately, the intangible, vibrant tavern culture of Chicago.
When we closed our doors on March 16, we immediately furloughed all employees, and lamented how short a run we had gotten as owners. Days later, deemed an “essential business,” we were allowed to re-open for package sales. This was a welcome announcement at the time, and we brought back two part-time and two full-time employees. Based on the city and state’s management of COVID precautions, we were given an approximate timeline of “July” for moving into Phase 4, and anticipated being allowed on-premise customers again.
(Phase 4 means “Gradually Resume,” which translates to allowing indoor bar and restaurant service to resume at 25% capacity, among other lifted restrictions.)
However, the initial plan was quashed as soon as early April, when Mayor Lightfoot ordered a curfew requiring all package liquor sales to end at 9 p.m. due to a recent uptick in violence. That curfew was initially set to last as long as the state-wide stay-at-home orders, but has now been adopted “indefinitely.”
Under Chicago liquor laws, off-premise package sales apply to businesses like Beermiscuous and other taverns that sell alcohol to-go without food. Off-premise sales typically account for under 49% of total sales for us.
Additionally, taverns are slower in the winter months and thus have fewer cash reserves. Facing the restrictions on off-premise sales, we somehow weathered the storm of March through June with to-go-only business. However, as restaurants were allowed to re-open for patio service—including alcohol sales—but restrictions remained in effect for taverns, our to-go sales tanked to an unsustainable level.
Chicago rushed into Phase 4 of reopening on June 26, meaning that all taverns and restaurants could open to indoor service with a maximum of 25% capacity and serve until 11 p.m. Taking the safety of our staff and patrons very seriously, we invested a substantial amount of time and money into new protocols. These included plexiglass shields at service areas, multiple touchless hand sanitizer dispensers, face shields in addition to masks for staff, and a touchless thermometer. Our staff all started a regular COVID-19 testing regimen as well. Proudly, we’ve heard from multiple customers that we’re one of the safest tavern experiences in Chicago.
However, the city (citing the rising number of positive COVID-19 test results) forbid all indoor drinking at taverns from July 24 (again, the city’s bars, packed with non-mask-wearers, all have food licenses and are allowed to remain open). Without private property for patio service, we were forced back into to-go only sales, and once again, subjected to the 9 p.m. sales cut-off.
Even sidewalk cafe set-ups aren’t immune from these rules. Traditionally, Chicago only issues those permits to establishments with food permits/licenses. I say traditionally, because on July 31, the city granted taverns permission to operate sidewalk cafes. We have a 3-foot x 38-foot strip of sidewalk available for our use, when the weather cooperates. But because this was such a last-minute job, we’re now scrambling to do the math of how much a permit, fencing, and furniture will cost us in addition to our previous COVID-19 expenses. We’re also stuck trying to work out how many seats we’d actually have with social distancing—right now, it looks like only six or eight—and how many patio days are left in the year to make any profit.
This latest measure feels like the city cut off our arm—and now, weeks later, is offering us a Band-Aid for it.
We’re not the only ones struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing and contradictory rules and regulations. Our patrons, to whom we want to sell beer, aren’t fully caught up on the latest news. We field multiple calls per day simply clarifying hours and on-/off-premise consumption allowances. We’re turning away paying customers at our door because we don’t have a food license. “Heartbreaking” doesn’t even begin to describe this feeling.
I've yet to see data from any source that proves that being seated, indoors, eating or drinking without a mask is more or less dangerous if the business has a certain license type. Explanations from my local alderman have yet to be heard as well.
Why is going to a restaurant and consuming a drink (while seated, unmasked and socially distant) "safe" according to the city, but going to a tavern and doing the same is not? Why is 50,000 people visiting Navy Pier in the first 10 days it was open OK, but my tavern having a maximum seated capacity of 20 patrons—and never having exceeded more than half that capacity while operating—not OK? [Editor’s note: Navy Pier has since announced it will shutter to visitors on Sept. 8.] Why is a coffee shop allowed to be open to 25% indoor capacity when our “craft beer cafe” is not? Does an espresso machine make them more safe than us? Is ingesting one drug (caffeine) indoors and unmasked a safer activity than consuming another (ethanol) outside?
The rules are clearly arbitrary, while the general population, business owners, and even the politicians themselves do not seem to understand them. This is truly a case of the cowardly leading the blind. We do not know what metrics we are hoping to achieve as a city before taverns will be allowed to re-open, nor have we been given any timeline of how long we will be forced to stay closed.
All we know is that on the Monday the latest restrictions were announced, Chicago was seeing an average of 233 new cases per day and its positivity rate was at 5%. I assume we're aiming for a smaller percentage than that—but we've not heard anything officially from the Mayor, nor her office.
The only thing Mayor Lightfoot has done for us is urge us to "get creative" and "talk to Washington"—or spend money (while we struggle to pay bills) and time on obtaining new permits (the sidewalk cafe permit is $300 alone) and new equipment. The communication coming from City Hall has been unilaterally tone-deaf, unhelpful, and borderline condescending. I've been told the only way my establishment can serve customers is outdoors, and the recent expansion of the sidewalk permits has been hailed by the city as a “lifeline,” but it feels more like a threadbare, too-short rope. Outdoor service is only an option for nice weather days, for only a few more months of the year if I'm being generous. Then what?
According to the City of Chicago, there are 494 taverns affected by these orders, including mine. I'm worried about the loss of my tavern, certainly, but I’m also concerned about the loss of Chicago’s unique tavern culture.
For years, Chicago’s politicians have been squeezing our tavern culture by making it harder to obtain a liquor license, leading a push to instruct residents and aldermen on how to ban new licenses in their wards, and labeling the industry on the whole as “problematic.” In the time of COVID, many independent tavern owners feel the neo-Prohibitionist stance of Chicago politicians means we’re hung out to dry.
Independent, neighborhood watering holes serve as community centers as much as places to grab a drink. Taverns are part of the fabric of Chicago, right there in the name of the true Chicago-style pizza: the “tavern-style” or “tavern-cut,” which was originally designed as a bar snack. Each of these hundreds of taverns fosters its own neighborhood community, yet the city seems determined to punish them (but not restaurants) for upticks in crime and shootings in the city without addressing the real root of these issues (hint: it is not taverns).
A whole chunk of my life, and the city’s soul, would go missing if these establishments are squeezed out of existence. And that’s looking more likely with every passing week that the local government fails to provide significant assistance to taverns.
Even with enabling patio service, the culture, sense of community, and atmosphere in our business has already been affected. I can no longer offer samples of draft beer to customers to help them find one they’d like. I had a 21-year-old come in on his birthday to grab a six-pack to-go, and it pained me to not be able to pour him and his friends a Malört shot and pull him his first legal draft beer.
I know I speak for my entire staff when I say we believe the best thing for the city, tavern culture, and humanity in general would be to pay everyone to stay home and have a real, total lockdown for a short period of time. But this would require closed borders or nation-wide compliance to really work—and that, apparently, is not happening. Barring that, we’re asking local authorities for transparency, communication, and fair application of rules that are based in science.
In the midst of COVID, what we are selling is no longer just craft beer. We’re selling a memory. We’re trying to offer some level of comfort in these unprecedented times. Tavern culture is built on connections and service. If these businesses close for good—or are replaced by chains, third-party delivery drivers, or anonymous boxes on your doorstep—it will not be easy to bring their culture back.
Independent taverns are fighting against that future. Taverns need the respect and recognition of elected officials. They need to be rightfully considered a key element of Chicago’s culture, and protected accordingly.
Words, Virigina ThomasIllustrations, Colette Holston
