A Chicago Cocktail Institution Will Have New Owners On St. Patrick’s Day

Weegee’s Lounge will have new owners. | Ashok Selvam/Eater Chicago

Weegee’s Lounge in Logan Square sparked a beverage renaissance

Often, when bars change hands, regular customers may grow anxious that new ownership will change what attracted them to their favorite drinking holes. But, Village Tap owner Jeff Hoffman, as he’s set to take over beloved Logan Square cocktail bar Weegee’s Lounge this month from Alex Huebner and Lynne Marrs.

“Weegee’s is just that perfect neighborhood tavern and the beauty about that is we don’t have to change anything,” Hoffman says. “You go there and you feel like you’ve been transported back in time to the 1940s and it’s just a great feeling. It’s one of the few bars left that doesn’t have a TV and we’ll keep that the same, as well as the focus on great hospitality, great cocktails, and being a great partner with the community.”

Newcity broke the news about the sale, after ownership cryptically alluded to changes in December, announcing that Weegee’s would be celebrating its last New Year’s Eve. The Instagram post featured an image of a sailboat, a nod to Huebner and Marrs’ plans to sail away to Portland, Maine. The couple opened Weegee’s in 2006 and helped spark a classic cocktail renaissance in Chicago along with The Violet Hour, which opened the following year in Wicker Park.

“I think they have some of the best cocktails in the city,” Hoffman says. “Alex is providing me with his shoebox full of recipes and we might expand with some more cocktails. Alex already has a nice beer list focused on mostly local breweries and we’ll continue in that vein as well.”

Hoffman had been looking into buying a second bar since 2020, and was particularly interested in adding a cocktail bar to his portfolio, but COVID-19 disrupted his plans. He sees a lot of synergy between the Village Tap and Weegee’s, which are almost exactly the same size. The Village Tap has long been an oasis for craft beer in Roscoe Village, but as interest in beer decreases, Hoffman might add a few Weegee’s cocktails to the tap’s menu — particularly their Aviation, which Hoffman thinks is the best in the city.

The sale is set to close St. Patrick’s Day, Monday, March 17, and while some minor renovations are needed, Hoffman doesn’t expect there will be any business disruption. The biggest change will be improvements in the back patio, adding seating for about 60 people and sprucing it up with planter boxes and stamped concrete. Weegee’s doesn’t have a kitchen, but Hoffman would like to host pop-ups and food trucks on the weekends. He’s already in talks with a friend who works at Half Shell about the possibility of bringing in lobster rolls and oysters from the Lincoln Park seafood restaurant.

Hoffman is no stranger to preserving neighborhood institutions. He moved from California to Chicago in 2016 and visited the Village Tap for the first time when looking for a home in Roscoe Village. He fell in love with the place and became good friends with owner Mike Green.

“Mike would introduce me to other people as his dear friend Jeff even though I’d known him for a week,” Hoffman says. “I’ve tried to maintain that level of hospitality and it’s very important in a neighborhood bar. My staff knows all our regulars by name; they know what they drink.”

Green died in 2017, just a few months after Hoffman had quit his job at Allstate Insurance. He was trying to decide when to do next when Green’s business partner asked him to buy the bar.

“I’m trying the best I can to continue (his) legacy of just providing excellent hospitality to everybody that comes through these doors,” Hoffman says. “We have a lot of people that have been here for 30 years or who have moved to the suburbs or another state and when they come back to Chicago they visit and talk about the times they had here in the ‘90s.”

Hoffman hopes that all of Weegee’s staff will stay on, and he expects he’ll be spending most of his time there in the next few months getting to know its operations.

“I’m really comfortable with my crew (at the Village Tap) and they can kind of run things without me,” he says. “I’ll still be there every day, just not as long as I normally am.”