A Star Bar Blessed by a Chicago Journalist
Jim Tuohy was taller than this. (D. Hoekstra pix.)
The fine Chicago writer Jim Tuohy was a curious guy. He cut his chops at the City News Bureau of Chicago, wrote for the Chicago Reader and Chicago Lawyer and co-authored 1989’s “Greylord: Justice, Chicago Style” with Rob Warden.
My encounters with Tuohy were almost always after 2 a.m. at the Old Town Ale House and sometimes earlier in the evening at O’Rourke’s and Riccardo’s. He was always interested in what stories I was working on. He radiated a sincere sense of wonder. He leaned into me like light through a shadow.
Tuohy died of kidney failure in January 2020. He was 85 years old.
I’ve been stopping for beers at the Star Bar, 853 N. Western Ave. Oddly enough, screwed into a wall on the west side of the bar is a mug shot-type photo of young Jim Tuohy, a version of a man I never knew. He has a shaved head and a fierce look in his eyes. He looks like a Duke point guard.
I was curious.
Why was this black-and-white picture of Tuohy hanging in a Ukrainian Village bar he had never visited?
Tuohy was a regular at Sterch’s, 2238 N. Lincoln Ave. Here is my Newcity magazine deep dive into fellow writer Harlan Stern and Sterch’s. When Sterch’s closed in 2009, Tuohy jumped across the street to the since-closed Kelsey’s, 2265 N. Lincoln. Kelsey’s was a Todd & Trixie Lincoln Park staple, but Touhy wasn’t fussy as long as the beer was cold and the audience was willing.
The Star Bar image was Touhy’s basic training photograph for the U.S. Marines. Touhy signed up after attending Barrington (IL.) High School. “He was trying to look tough like we all do when we are 18 or 19,” former Kelsey’s manager Matt Brownley said in an e-mail. “People thought it was a mugshot. We put it up behind the bar. Then we put it up at the Star Bar, everyone liked it so we kept it. It’s a good conversation starter.” Touhy would like that.
Vicki Quade and Jim at Kelsey’s; Sept. 2019, a few months before he died. (Photo by Vicki Quade,)
Chicago writer Vicki Quade was Touhy’s friend. She met him in 1997 when he was an assistant basketball coach for her son Michael’s team at Saint Clement grade school. “But I knew the name ‘Jim Tuohy’ from Greylord,” Quade said in a phone conversation. “He really did love it when people saw the photo and asked him what he’d been arrested for. Frank Sinatra has a famous arrest photo so it was ‘What did you do?’ Was it anti-war in the 1960s? Jim was always ticked because the photo cheated him out of an inch in height. He was around 6’2”. But he said he wasn’t about to complain to the Marines.”
During the Kelsey’s years Brownley and Kelsey’s (now Star Bar), bartender Efrain Aguliar shaved their heads. One night, Touhy smiled and told them he used to have a nearly bald head. He fetched his military photo and brought it back to the bar. A picture was taken of Touhy holding the military photo in front of his face. Quade took the photo of what became known as “The Three Amigos.”
The Three Amigos! Efrain (left), Jim and Matt. (Courtesy of Vicki Quade.)
Former Kelsey’s manager Gregg Weinstein is a partner in the Star Bar. “I took the Touhy (military) photo with me,” he said. “I liked it so much and I didn’t want it to get lost.”
Kelsey’s opened in 1987 and closed, first on a temporary basis, on March 16, 2020 just after the State of Illinois declared a public health emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kelsey’s never reopened. Weinstein said, “I never wanted to go back to that street. I was tired.
“Sterch’s was a cool bar at the other end of the street that young people didn’t participate in. We were a little more mature even though that street was very immature. Young people made the wheel go around on that street (Lincoln Avenue), as did the (Grant) hospital. For a while it dipped. (John) Barleycorn left. Jimmy Rittenberg used to be on that street (Jukebox Saturday Night, 2251 N. Lincoln). Joey Vartanian had two bars on that street, Big Nasty (across the street from Jukebox Saturday Night.) Good dudes. And there were a lot of bodies.
Tuohy was a busy guy.
A few years before I landed at the Chicago Sun-Times in 1985, Tuohy had run with Pulitzer Prize winners Roger Ebert, Tom Fitzpatrick,and Mike Royko. In March 1983, Touhy wrote a long-form profile on Ebert for Chicago Lawyer. His lede was, “Roger Ebert had arrived at the movies, but the movies had not.” Touhy and Ebert likely got along because Touhy was a gypsy soul out of a noir film. He liked to have fun. Today many journalists don’t have fun. Touhy blurbed one of his books as the winner of ‘the coveted Sarsfield Award.” Well, he was born in Chicago as James Sarsfield Touhy.
“He’d stay all night with the young kids,” Weinstein said. “They’d do Jello shots, and he’d be standing in the middle of the party drinking a beer. Unbelievable. He drank PBRs, tall boys. He got along with young people because he didn’t give them a bad feeling. He was into them. Why did that work? Most old dudes would get shunned, but he was accepted by everybody. He was never judgmental. He was always curious.”
Quade, co-creator of the popular Chicago theater comedy “Late Nite Catechism” remembered, “Four times a year he held pizza parties at Kelsey’s. They were Sterch’s reunions, but they were open to anyone. His invitations were so beautifully written. They started at four in the afternoon. By six o’ clock the bar was packed. It was the only time I went day drinking.”
In a January 2020 appreciation of Touhy, his colleague Rob Warden wrote, in part, “Touhy’s personality was such that at Sterch’s, a bar he frequented on Lincoln Avenue, he enjoyed all the beer he could drink free of charge–or rather he was allowed to run up a ten-grand tab with no expectation that it would ever be paid–because his presence was a draw for paying customers.”
In March, 2020, Weinstein and Kevin Killerman (Blind Robin/Star Bar, Rex Tavern) purchased the Matchbox, 770 N. Milwaukee Av. The adjacent Silver Palm train car has been leased to a New York based entrepreneur. Food and remodeling will be involved. The Tiki Tiki Chicago bar in the front of the space will remain for now. Weinstein and Killmeran’s first project together was Kincade’s, 950 W. Armitage, in 1986.
“And the Star Bar felt like a good thing,” he said. “It was a good stretch of road. I always liked the area. It was the middle of the block and I’ve been skeptical about the middle of the block for retail. I like corners. Then the pandemic hit us there. We had an opportunity to clean it up.” The bar is still legally the Blind Robin, but it is commonly referred to as the Star Bar due to the artistic neon star outside.
Up until a couple of years ago, every Christmas, the Blind Robin turned into a pop-up Kelsey’s for former employees.
Kelsey’s artifacts were removed after the event, but like a timeless punch line, Touhy was drilled into the wall for posterity. There’s a lot of open space on the wall around the photograph, creating a metaphoric perspective for the way Jim Touhy explored our colorful and complicated city.
Hi David. I’m Jim’s daughter, Michaela. My brother John’ sent me your story and I wanted to thank you for writing such a lovely piece. You captured my dad’s pesona beautifully, and it’s nice to know his old marine corp photo is hanging up in another Chicago tavern. I’ll have to to stop by for a beer and say hi to the crew. Dad really enjoyed the time he spent at Kelsey’s and Matt and Efrain always looked out for him.
Thank you for the memories you stirred.
Thank you for writing Michaela,
Yes, check it out. What I remember most about your dad was his sincere interest in what I was up to. And he always smiled.
Yes, thank you Dave for writing this fantastic article about my Uncle Jimmy! I loved joining he and Aunt Mike after a family party at the after bars at the Irish Oak, Sterch’s and many other of Chicago drinking establishments that all welcomed them by name! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this picture and will join you Michaela for that drink! Let’s make a day of it with an impromptu day of Uncle Jimmy!
Thanks again Dave!
Thank you for reading this and checking in. Great idea!