Good afternoon, Chicago. ✶
In today’s newsletter, we’ve got two stories about Chicagoans with ambitious plans to create a space for people to connect and communities to grow.
We’ll introduce you to a North Sider whose dreams of opening a completely sober bar are becoming a reality, thanks to donors raising $47,000 to kickstart her plan.
And we’ve got the details on a longtime South Side blues club, closed for nearly 10 years, getting ready to reopen its doors and carry the genre’s legacy.
Plus, we’ve got reporting on a demonstration at Northwestern University, Gov. J.B. Prtizker’s reaction to the Bears’ new stadium plans and more community news you need to know below. 👇
⏱️: A 7-minute read
— Matt Moore, newsletter reporter (@MattKenMoore)
TODAY’S TOP STORY
Astrology-themed sober bar raised $47k in Kickstarter funds, predicts late summer opening
Reporting by Olivia Dimmer for the Sun-Times
A sober bar?: After deciding to become sober in 2022, Uptown resident Morgan Martinez began to connect with other like-minded individuals, but she was discouraged by the lack of sober-friendly hangouts in Chicago. On a trip back to her hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin, to visit family, she stopped by the sober bar Inmoxicated in Racine. “I went and was just completely enamored,” Martinez, 29, said. “The owners were amazing. It felt like a real dive bar — it even had regulars — but everything was alcohol-free.”
Crowdfunding a dream: Feeling inspired, Martinez launched a Kickstarter campaign in February to bring her own sober bar concept, called Solar Intentions, to Chicago. The funding goal was $45,000, and more than 290 donors pitched in, raising $47,000. She said she’s now looking for spaces around Chicago, with an eye on Logan Square. The plan is to open Solar Intentions by the end of summer.
Sober space movement: Solar Intentions will join a growing scene of sober bars in Chicago, as more people reconsider their alcohol use but still seek the sense of community a local haunt often provides. Martinez credits Cristina Torres, founder of the Humboldt Park nonalcoholic bottle shop Bendición Dry Bar and Bottle Shop, with pioneering the sober bar movement in Chicago.
The plan: Solar Intentions will be part sober bar — serving nonalcoholic beer and wine, along with astrology-inspired mocktails — and part tarot card lounge. It will also be an eclectic storefront and music venue, Martinez said.
Key quote: “I want this to feel like a home and also a pit stop for people,” she said. “I want Solar Intentions to feel like people’s genuine third space, where they will always be able to organically connect with someone without substances that used to cause them harm.”
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
- Northwestern students protest: Over 100 people set up an encampment on Northwestern University’s campus as a show of support for Palestinian people living in Gaza, to protest what they call censorship from the university, and call on the institution to divest from Israel.
- Dexter Reed’s death ruled homicide: Dexter Reed was shot at least 13 times by Chicago police during a traffic stop last month in Humboldt Park, according to a newly released autopsy report. The oversight agency investigating the shooting, has reported that four officers fired nearly 100 rounds at Reed after he shot another officer in the wrist on March 21.
- Top Dems skeptical of Bears’ stadium plan: Gov. J.B. Pritzker brushed aside the latest proposal, which includes more than $2 billion in private funds but still requires taxpayer subsidies, saying it “isn’t one that I think the taxpayers are interested in getting engaged in.”
- Nonprofits unite: Lawyers for the Creative Arts and the Arts & Business Council of Chicago, two local nonprofits serving arts organizations statewide, are combining to create what they describe as one of the “largest volunteer corps serving the arts” in the country.
- Cicadas’ imminent return: A brood of cicadas that emerge from the ground every 17 years in northern Illinois is preparing to make its appearance in just a few weeks, experts say.
- Cava comes to Chicago: The fast-casual Mediterranean eatery will open its doors in Wicker Park Friday, with plans for another location in the suburbs this summer.
- Top house music artists to play NASCAR weekend: Some of the biggest names in house music will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the genre in Grant Park as part of this summer’s NASCAR Chicago Street Race Weekend (July 6-7).
- 3 stars for ‘The People’s Joker’: Co-writer and star Vera Drew’s magnificently subversive, wildly inventive and pure punk parody is a unique, darkly funny and at times genuinely moving coming-of-age film, writes Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper.
OUR CITY IN COLOR 🎨
Chicago muralist hopes to ease patients arriving at Illinois Medical District CTA station through his art
Reporting by Genevieve Bookwalter
When Jason Messinger was commissioned to do murals at the three stationhouses at the CTA Blue Line’s Illinois Medical District stop, he decided to create with people getting medical care in mind.
“My goal would be for people to look at this for 30 seconds and transport them on a mini-vacation of the mind,” says the Chicago artist, who specializes in tile murals and sculpture. “Each mural is an abstract idea of a vacation destination.”
Messinger created five murals that hang in the three station houses at the Illinois Medical District stop, which runs along the middle of the Eisenhower Expressway on the West Side.
The district just south of there is home to Rush University Medical Center, the University of Illinois Hospital, Stroger Hospital and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. The FBI’s Chicago offices are nearby, too.
The murals are composed of 12-by-12-inch black porcelain tiles that look like slate or stone. Messinger chose those to stand up to the weather in a space that isn’t quite outdoors but isn’t quite indoors either. Colored glazes fill Messinger’s carvings in the porcelain.
“If someone goes, ‘Oh, pretty,’ and is transported away from their worries or fears of medical care or even FBI appointments, that meets my goal,” Messinger says.
BRIGHT ONE ✨
After years of delays, Lee’s Unleaded Blues is reopening and vowing to celebrate musicmakers and the community
Reporting by Erica Thompson
After closing in 2015, the beloved South SIde venue Lee’s Unleaded Blues will make its long-awaited return with a soft reopening Friday, featuring two performances by Chicago bluesman John Primer and the Real Deal.
Though the decor has been updated, new owner Warren Berger and manager Jennifer Littleton vow to preserve the same sense of community that the club brought to the South Side. And they both stressed the importance of keeping the music alive in the area, which has seen multiple blues clubs close over the years.
“There’s a demand for it, which is why we’re really excited to open it,” said Littleton, 55, of Logan Square, who previously managed B.L.U.E.S. On Halsted in Lincoln Park. “People constantly ask me, ‘When are you guys going to open?’ The musicians really need a place to go.”
Previous patrons will notice several changes, including a new bar, walnut drink rails and remodeled bathrooms. The club’s walls have been painted blue, and the original tin ceiling has been replaced. The reconfiguring of furniture has allowed the venue to accommodate about 110 guests instead of 49.
Berger, 77, of Lincoln Park, took over the club in 2018 and originally planned to reopen in 2021, but was delayed by city regulations.
“It’s just exciting,” said Berger, who also owns Club Escape on the South Side. “At my age, I do this because I want to do it. I like working every day. We’re going to pack the place out, and we’re going to do it right.”
After hosting Primer on Friday and again on Saturday, Lee’s will shut down for a couple weeks and officially reopen in mid-May. The venue will continue to focus on booking Chicago acts, Littleton said.
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
Say you had to design a bar from scratch in your neighborhood — what would you put in the bar to make it look/feel like your part of Chicago?
Email us (please include your first and last name). To see the answers to this question, check our Morning Edition newsletter. Not subscribed to Morning Edition? Sign up here so you won’t miss a thing!
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Editor: Ellery Jones
Newsletter reporter: Matt Moore
Copy editor: Angie Myers
