A building in Uptown famous for being home to the iconic jazz spot, the Green Mill, has been put up for sale.
A real estate listing went live on Tuesday for the property that was once Al Capone’s Prohibition-era hangout at the corner of Broadway and Lawrence Avenue. No sales price is listed.
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WATCH HEREProperty records show Green Mill owner Dave Jemilo purchased the building, and seven adjacent retail spots, for $5 million in late 2021.
It’s not clear yet what may happen to the Green Mill.
Jemilo and the real estate agents of the Kudan Group, who are managing the listing, did not return requests for comment. A source familiar with the listing told Crain’s Chicago Business that the Green Mill’s operations should continue as usual.
Jemilo bought the Green Mill in 1986 when he was 30. The spot has since become one of the world’s most admired jazz venues, known for its connection to Prohibition history. The club is famous for jazz, but it has also been featured in many shows and movies, including “High Fidelity” and “Ocean’s Twelve.”
The club opened in 1907 as Pop Morse’s Roadhouse and three years later became the Green Mill Gardens, according to a 2014 profile by the Chicago Reader. Some historians have said the name might have referred to Paris’ Moulin Rouge (Red Mill), but the owner chose the color green to distance itself from a nearby red-light district.
Jemilo has said he bought the club with plans to make it known for jazz shows.
“I thought we could make it a destination joint,” he told The Reader. “Where did guys go to see jazz in the ‘40s in Harlem? You have a joint that looks cool, with hopefully great music, people will make the trek.”
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SIGN UP The first-ever poetry slam also took place at the Green Mill.
“Didn’t want to compete with myself at Deja Vu (another bar he owned) with the jazz, so I was thinking, ‘What can I do?’” Jemilo told the Reader in 2014. He enlisted Marc Smith, who said he’d organize the show for free, a month after Jemilo opened the bar.
“The slam started at the Green Mill, and now it’s around the world,” Jemilo told the Reader.
The neighborhood was rougher, and the location was not in good shape, when Jemilo bought the club.
“People say, ‘Oh my God, you bought a gold mine.’ I didn’t buy a gold mine. I bought a dump and made it a gold mine,” he said in a WTTW-11 program “Chicago Stories” earlier this year.
Jemilo has had his hand in many bars around Chicago. Jemilo co-owned the Nisei Lounge in the mid-1990s, according to previous reporting in the Sun-Times. He also once owned the Saxony Liquors and Lounge. In 2018, Jemilo said he was opening a bar adjacent to the Green Mill called Club Della Robbia. But construction was delayed and it never opened.
