Chicago's first fully operational winery opened not in wine country but in a former food-distribution warehouse on Randolph Street. City Winery Chicago at 1200 West Randolph Street welcomed its first guests in August 2012 - Mayor Rahm Emanuel helped cut the ribbon at the 14 August opening party and comedian Lewis Black broke in the stage with a week of shows, followed within days by two sold-out nights from Lindsey Buckingham. It was the first expansion of Michael Dorf's Manhattan original, and the founder of the Knitting Factory used the 33,000-square-foot single-level space to build what he called the 2.0 version of his concept. The layout puts the winemaking on display: a 45-foot wall of glass wraps the working winery around the public rooms, with 250 barrels stacked five high and visible from the roughly 300-seat concert hall. The listening room - booked from the start by Old Town School of Folk Music alumna Colleen Miller - runs shows 20 to 25 nights a month with dinner and wine service throughout, while the 175-seat restaurant and lounge serves a Mediterranean-leaning menu and more than 20 house-produced wines from California, Oregon, Washington, Argentine and Chilean grapes, many on tap. The early calendars set a tone the room has kept: Mavis Staples, Rosanne Cash and Esperanza Spalding-calibre bookings across soul, folk, jazz, blues and songwriter pop, plus comedy, played to a seated house that came to listen. Multi-night residencies became a specialty, and the venue added a seasonal outpost on the Chicago Riverwalk pouring its wines downtown. The address did the rest. Randolph Street's restaurant row and the Fulton Market district grew up around the winery through the 2010s, and with the Morgan stop on the Green and Pink Lines a short walk away, the room sits in the middle of what became one of the country's densest dining neighbourhoods - a fitting home for a venue built on the dinner-and-a-show idea.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 1200 West Randolph Street, Chicago, IL, United States, 60607

Website: https://citywinery.com/chicago

Capacity: 300

Opening Date: 14/08/2012

Serves Food

Accessible