The Bars Behind the Films: Chicago’s Creative Third Spaces

Art on Tap Chicago makes films about artists. But from the beginning, we've also been interested in the places where creativity happens away from the studio.

Chicago's neighborhood bars can be much more than places to have a drink. They are meeting places, neighborhood living rooms and, sometimes, creative incubators—places where regulars become friends, strangers strike up conversations and artists find community.

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg called places outside home and work “third places”: informal gathering spots where people return again and again, developing relationships and a sense of belonging. Please see our blog post on the topic.

That idea—we call ‘em “Third Spaces”— has become central to Art on Tap. The five bars we've filmed in are different from one another, but they share something more important than what they pour.

People come back. And when they do, communities form.

The Map Room: A Third Place by Design

There may be no better place to begin than the Map Room, the Bucktown bar where we filmed artist Ken R. Klopack and bar manager Brittany Pisano.

Watercolor by Maria Delton

“The Map” opened in 1992 with a travelers' theme and a remarkable selection of beers from around the world. But founders Laura and Mark Blasingame wanted to create more than an interesting beer bar. Inspired by Oldenburg's The Great Good Place, they deliberately set out to create a “third place” where people from different walks of life could meet, talk and become friends.

More than three decades later, that philosophy remains part of Map Room's identity.

It's also what interested us when we filmed there. Ken talks about his art and its place in the public realm, while Brittany describes the different roles the Map Room plays within its community. Full disclosure: we’re regulars at the Map and conceived Art on Tap Chicago in discussions over its remarkable selection of beers.

Watch Ken's film

Go Tavern & Liquors: The Chicago Slashie

Go Tavern & Liquors represents another Chicago tradition: the neighborhood “slashie”—part tavern, part packaged-goods store.

The Logan Square location dates to 1952, when it opened as Dorothy's Liquors. Michael Stellatos bought the business from his uncle in 2012, renamed it Go and expanded its beer, wine and whiskey offerings while retaining the character of a neighborhood bar.

That familiarity is central to our very first Art on Tap film, featuring mixed-media artist Cori O'Connor and bartender and artist Ayda Keshtkar.

Cori talks about the friendships and familiar faces that have made Go part of her creative life. From behind the bar, Ayda talks about the importance of supporting the people and community surrounding Go.

Ayda's perspective is particularly interesting because she's both bartender and artist—someone helping create the environment while also participating in its creative community.

Go illustrates something we've encountered repeatedly while making these films: a creative space doesn't necessarily announce itself as one. Sometimes it just looks like the bar down the street.

Watch Cori's film

Solemn Oath’s Still Life: Building Community

Solemn Oath’s Still Life offers a different version of the neighborhood bar.

Solemn Oath opened its Logan Square taproom in 2021 after operating its brewery in Naperville for nine years. Owner John Barley and his collaborators deliberately designed Still Life to feel less like a conventional brewery taproom and more like a neighborhood tavern, drawing inspiration from Wisconsin Northwoods bars and European pubs.

Art is part of the room itself, with work and objects contributed by people connected to the brewery.

That made Still Life an especially appropriate setting for our film with collage artist Lauren Foit and bar manager Michael Cunningham.

Lauren has hosted collage pop-ups there, inviting people to make art together. In our film, she talks about encouraging creativity, while Michael discusses Solemn Oath's commitment to creating community and nurturing friendships.

Here the connection between art and the third space becomes particularly visible.

Making art becomes one of the ways people gather.

Watch Lauren's film

J9 Wine Bar: A Personal History

The story of J9 Wine Bar in Lincoln Park begins with family.

Founder Sonya Mlodzek's family acquired the property in 1975, and she grew up in the coach house behind it. She eventually imagined a neighborhood wine bar where people could meet friends, talk and share a glass of wine.

She opened J9 in 2016, naming it for her late sister Jeanine.

The business has evolved since then, but the idea of an intimate neighborhood gathering place remains.

For Art on Tap, J9 became the setting for our conversation with figurative artist and Art City founder Joe Sikora and general manager Johnna Battaglia.

Their conversation reinforces something we've seen throughout this project: community spaces often grow from very personal relationships—to family, to art and to a neighborhood.

Watch Joe's film

Central Park Bar: An Old Bar, a New Community

At Central Park Bar in Avondale, old and new Chicago meet across the bar.

Central Park occupies what had been an old Polish neighborhood tavern. Its current operators retained one particularly important piece of its past: an approximately 80-year-old wooden bar that remains at the center of the room.

We filmed artist Lexi Alvarado there for one of our Short Pours, created in collaboration with Art City's Cash Only: An Ode to Dive Bars.

Lexi talks about her artwork and the connection she sees between creativity and community service. Bar manager Levi Tyma approaches the same idea from the other side of the bar, talking about Central Park's support for the community that surrounds it. As a footnote, Levi also makes an incredible Sazerac cocktail!

Together, Lexi and Levi get at something fundamental to the idea of a third space. A neighborhood bar doesn't become one simply because people gather there. The people who operate it help create the conditions in which community can grow.

It's fitting that the conversation takes place around an 80-year-old bar—a new generation gathering where generations gathered before.

Watch Lexi's film

The People Give You a Reason to Return

The Map Room was consciously conceived as a third place. Go grew from Chicago's slashie tradition. J9 emerged from a family's connection to a neighborhood. Still Life deliberately created a contemporary neighborhood tavern. Central Park Bar gave new life to an old one.

Different histories, but we've heard remarkably similar stories once we've put our cameras inside them.

Artists talk about friendships. Bartenders talk about regulars. People meet someone they wouldn't otherwise have met. Creative projects emerge from conversations. Someone puts on a show. Someone hangs artwork. Someone returns the following week.

That's the part of Chicago bar culture that interests us most.

The drink may get you through the door. The people give you a reason to return.

And somewhere between those two things, a bar can become something more: a neighborhood institution, a creative space and a place where the next idea begins.

That's where Art on Tap Chicago wants to be.