Thought to be the oldest bar continuously opened in Chicago, Schaller’s Pump in Bridgeport abruptly closed its doors Sunday, May 7. The neighborhood spot at 3714 S. Halsted Street was an infamous hangout for the Daley family, a place to cheer on the White Sox, and a neighborhood hangout for people of all ages. As a place where patrons are treated like family, the tavern is not only one of the oldest, but also one of the most beloved. 

The abrupt closing of the tavern comes roughly a year after the passing of longtime owner Jack Schaller. Jack ran the tavern since the 1960s with the help of his children, and was the son of George Schaller, who purchased the bar near the end of the Prohibition. While the family refused to speak about the details of the closing, the owner’s daughter Kim Shinnick told the Chicago Tribune simply, “I’m sorry, I’m having a really hard time with this right now.”

On its final weekend, the bar was filled with patrons, some of whom had been coming to the tavern for years. Elmer Mestrovic, 60, told the Chicago Tribune that he had been visiting Schaller’s Pump since he was five years old and that his family celebrated many occasions there.

"It's almost like people are here to stop them. They don't want it to end,” Mestrovic told the publication.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that following the death of Jack, the tavern was no longer qualified for the senior citizen tax exemption that saved Schaller a total of $25,000 in property taxes over a four-year span. Without the exemption, the real estate taxes would be too much for the tavern and apartment upstairs for the family to handle.

 According to DNAinfo, the crown for Chicago’s oldest restaurant now goes to Daley’s Restaurant in Woodlawn at 809 E. 69rd Street. The locale has been in operation since 1892 — 11 years after Schaller’s opened — and has been operated by the same family since 1918. The restaurant, however, might soon move to a new location in the Woodlawn Station development.