The Green Mill: Al Capone's Jazz Club Still Serves Drinks Nightly

At 4802 N Broadway in the Uptown neighborhood, the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge has been serving drinks since the early 1900s; it is usually dated to 1907, though city records suggest 1898. During Prohibition it became a favorite haunt of Al Capone, whose lieutenant "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn reportedly became a part-owner of the establishment. Club lore holds that a tunnel system under the bar provided an escape route to a building across the alley, and the booth Capone is said to have preferred — positioned with a clear sightline to the door — is still there, and customers sit in it nightly, though the present room did not open until 1935, after Capone had gone to prison. In 1927, entertainer Joe E. Lewis had his throat slashed by hitmen tied to McGurn, after Lewis left the Green Mill for a competing club. Lewis survived and later had his story told in the Frank Sinatra film "The Joker Is Wild." The Green Mill survived Prohibition, postwar suburban migration, and the long decline of Uptown. It still hosts live jazz most nights of the week. Of all the places in Chicago associated with Capone, the Green Mill is one of the few where you can still sit down, order a drink, and hear music.