Cheers to Emmit’s Irish Pub: A Chicago Life

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Cheers to Emmit’s Irish Pub: A Chicago Life

Story and main photo by Drew Biada

INT. EMMIT’S PUB - EVENING

George Clooney eyes up Matt Damon across a high top in a Chicago bar behind the midday regulars. Clooney starts talking…something about robbing casinos in Vegas.

And SCENE!

This scene being filmed for the 2001 blockbuster “Ocean’s 11” is just one of the countless, legendary stories from inside the four walls of Emmit’s Irish Pub.

Emmit’s poured its last shot in June of 2022. The building that housed the bar was previously used as a Chicago city bank during the Prohibition era, approximately 80 years prior.

Many 1920s Chicago gangsters, reportedly, kept cash in safe deposit boxes in the bank’s vault, and could use the tunnels dug under the bank to escape if needed. Legend has it that one tunnel even led to the Chicago Field Museum several miles away.

So wait, Danny Ocean is pitching a casino robbery while drinking in a pub that still has an original, Chicago mafia-used bank vault?

That’s right.

Started by two former Chicago firefighters, Kevin Doherty and Ron Halvorsen, Emmit’s was a Chicago icon for almost 30 years in the River West community.

The firemen purchased what was then O’Sulliven’s Tavern in 1996 and installed a new bar from scratch that Halvorsen built himself.

Photo courtesy of @doorwaysofchicago

You may recognize O’Sulliven’s Tavern from films like Backdraft and Uncle Buck.

In fact, John Candy had a badass, personal security guard he’d take to the bar with him: a Chicago Police Detective.

Former longtime Emmit’s server Catrina Jastrzab (a.k.a. Mama T), says her then father-in-law, Detective Tim O’Meara, looked out for Candy any time he filmed or hung out in Chicago. That included Candy’s later visits to Emmit’s.

Plenty of legendary Chicago cops did frequent Emmit’s, and its equally famous neighbor Richard’s Bar, for corned beef, Guinness, and whiskey.

Inside the four walls, patrons would find a nightly atmosphere that felt more like your Grandma’s living room. There were famous Irish dancing troupes on St. Patrick's Day, the Shannon Rovers Irish Pipe Bandits, and various neighborhood club meetups. The ultimate Irish-American experience.

Mama T and co-owner Ron Halvorsen, photo courtesy of @catrinajastrzab

Outside, you could catch the amazing smells of the neighboring Fulton Market District restaurants, gold shamrocks on Emmit’s brick walls, and the last-of-its-kind brass-plated revolving door that took you in the pub itself.

If you stop in Richard’s Bar today, you’ll probably hear more than one Emmit’s story. Someone will have known Ron or Kevin, hung out with the “Ocean’s 11” crew or Candy, and been inside that old bank vault.

Mama T says that’s not all that made Emmit’s special, "It’s the family, and some of the best friends I’ve made in my life. There are husbands and wives who are still married just from working together over 20 years ago. It brought so many people together."

Emmit’s Irish Pub was certainly a place that kept the good times in.

So raise a glass, because that’s what it’s all about.

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