60+ Years on Division Street: The Butch McGuire's Story

I opened Butch McGuire's on June 16, 1961, one block off the lake on Division Street, with a simple idea: it's more fun to eat in a saloon than drink in a restaurant. Sixty-five years later, that's still the whole philosophy.

Back then, Division Street wasn't the Gold Coast strip it is today — we helped make it that. Butch McGuire's became known as Chicago's original singles bar, the place where a night out turned into something more. Somewhere north of 20,000 marriages have started with two people meeting at this bar, and we've kept count because it matters to us. This building has been a launching point for more Chicago families than we can properly measure.

The place has stayed a family business the whole way through. What started with me is carried today by the next generation, still on Division Street, still slinging burgers and pouring drinks under the same green awnings.

Sixty-five years deep, we've got nothing left to prove. Come see why a Gold Coast institution still feels like a neighborhood bar.