Butch McGuire’s is the original Chicago single club. Tagged as the “Father of the Singles Bar” Butch McGuire’s has been connecting Chicago singles for decades. See for yourself…an excerpt from Chicago Magazine

The Chicago Tribune Magazine: 10/18/1986
Bar None: 25 years after he invented it, Butch McGuire is still king of the single scene. BY Dennis L. Breo
At about 4PM on Friday, June 16, 1961, a nervous Butch McGuire and this two roommates stood inside their hole-in-the-wall—the original barroom has only about 1,700 square feet, and the enormous curved bar seems to take up half that space—and began to rewrite social history. “The bar jutted out into the room to accommodate the stripper’s stage (yes, Butch’s used to be a strip joint),” McGuire recalls, “and I did not have enough money rebuild it. Still don’t. I had decided to serve nothing but draft beer—Old Style—because we didn’t have the cooling system for bottles. As it was, we had to persuade Lane Drugs (now Houlihan’s) next door to let us store the beer kegs in their basement. We fixed the prices at 35 cents for an 8-ounce glass of draft beer, 65 cents for a mixed drink. My idea, right or wrong, was that for $1 a guy could buy a beer himself and a mixed drink for his date. We didn’t have a cash register, and I had to make change from a cigar box….”

…McGuire’s claims to have helped more than 5,000 marriages—”more than Holy Name Cathedral”…

…According to Gaelic legend, to capture a leprechaun meant that a treasure was nearby; according to his friends, to be with Butch McGuire is to know that good times, great parties and special people are nearby…

McGuire’s Operating Manual—Subject: Female Customers: Young women play a major part in the success of our establishment. Treat them with the utmost of respect and courtesy at all times.

Butch’s secret from the start was that he broke the taboo and made it respectable, even desirable, for single women  to enter the saloon alone. In the beginning, there was a strict policy at Butch’s, that a gentleman always offer his seat to the fairer sex. Until he died, Butch told the story of the bars first match.

…Butch can remember still remember the saloon’s first marriage. “We used to have a piano at the front of the bar and we would have nightly sing-a-longs. This fellow named Webb Caster, who worked for Honeywell, was playing ‘My Kind of Town’ when Donna Schwartz walked in and began to dance on top of the piano. Well, Webb figured that anyone brace enough to dance on his piano was brave enough to go out with him, and today they’re living with their children in Southern California. Webb is CEO of Xerox…

Did you meet at Butch McGuire’s and get HITCHED? We want to know about it, leave a comment below!

Did you meet at Butch McGuire’s and want to get HITCHED at Butch’s? We can make it happen! EMAIL DOMINIQUE to start the planning process.

Share this: