Chicago's transit authority demolished this club, and it came back bigger. Bottom Lounge began life in 1991 as Lakeview Links, a sports bar with cover bands at 3206 North Wilton in Lake View; when owners learned around 2001 that the CTA had targeted the property under eminent domain for the Brown Line extension, they adopted the Bottom Lounge name and started booking original music as a supposed last hurrah. The reprieve lasted years - four consecutive New Year's Eves were billed as the final night - before the wreckers finally came in 2005, and after a legal fight over relocation compensation under the Uniform Relocation Act, the club reopened in 2008 at 1375 West Lake Street in the West Loop, christened by an Urge Overkill show that May. The rebuilt operation upgraded every dimension: a 700-capacity main concert hall with proper sightlines and sound, the 300-capacity Volcano Room for smaller shows and private events, an upstairs event loft, and a full restaurant working American Midwest comfort food. The old venue's all-ages tradition - increasingly rare in Chicago after the Fireside Bowl's retreat - carried over, keeping Bottom Lounge one of the city's essential rooms for punk, hardcore, metal and emo tours whose audiences skew younger than the bar crowd. Live Nation began booking the room in 2012, wiring it into national tour routing while the venue kept its independent character, and the calendar has stayed dense ever since: touring acts on the way up, local showcases, and the genre-agnostic booking that made the Wilton Avenue original a neighbourhood institution. The Green Line's Ashland stop sits a block away - a certain irony given who demolished the first building. The West Loop around the club has meanwhile transformed from meatpacking district to restaurant row, leaving Bottom Lounge as one of the neighbourhood's few loud rooms - a survivor twice over, once of eminent domain and once of gentrification, still doing the same job it backed into in 1991.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 1375 W Lake Street, Chicago, IL, United States, 60607

Website: https://bottomlounge.com

Capacity: 700

Opening Date: 01/01/1991

Serves Food