Wells Street Lost Its Bars. Here's What Old Town Got Instead

Old Town Pour House closed its doors on Wells Street in January 2025, and for a year and a half its space sat dark while regulars assumed the neighborhood favorite was simply between chapters. When Bottleneck Management finally announced where the 90-tap gastropub would resurface, the address wasn't 1419 N. Wells. It was 120 N. LaSalle, in the Loop. The company's chief marketing officer, Angela Zoiss, told Block Club Chicago the brand had "made such a presence for itself in Old Town" that reviving it felt inevitable. It just didn't feel inevitable that the revival would happen somewhere else entirely.

Wells Street has casual bars alongside destination dining and quick-service options. Recent closures have reduced the casual-bar choices described here.

Several Wells Street Bars Have Closed

Old Town Pour House was one of several casual bars on Wells Street to close. Wells on Wells, the bar and beer garden that had operated near Schiller since 2005, is now listed as closed. Tavern on Wells, the sports bar that opened at Wells and Division in 2015 billing itself as "an iconic, landmark sports bar/restaurant unlike any other," is closed too. Three concepts, three different owners, one shared identity: casual, come-as-you-are, no reservation required.

Old Town's dining scene has kept adding names all year. What's telling is which names, and what they're built to do.

Dining Additions and Plans

A 2025 destination-dining opening and a listed FARE location point to different dining formats from the casual bars that closed.

Shō opened at 1533 N. Wells in August 2025 and spent its first year building toward a James Beard nod, landing on the 2026 semifinalist list for Best Chef: Great Lakes alongside chefs Mari Katsumura and Adam Sindler. Katsumura's parents ran the influential Yoshi's Café, and she previously earned a Michelin star at her short-lived Yūgen, so Shō arrived with pedigree rather than a soft launch. The ten-course tasting menu runs $155 a head, with sake or wine pairings on top. Last month, on August 12, the restaurant marked its first anniversary by rolling out a new seasonal menu and introducing Shōjin, a plant-based omakase inspired by the centuries-old cuisine of Japanese Buddhist temples. This is not a place you wander into after a Second City show because you're hungry. You book Shō in advance and plan the evening around it.

At the other end, FARE has listed an Old Town address at 868 N. Wells, on the block near Layla & Ringo's Cafe, DJ's Great Room, and Petite Edith, tagged for a summer 2026 opening. Founders Kasia Bednarz and Britni de Leon started the concept from a single downtown food-hall counter after meeting while working in a Chicago restaurant in 2010, and the menu sticks to seasonal bowls, egg wraps, smoothies, and an all-day coffee bar. It's built for the fifteen minutes before you're due somewhere else, not the two hours you'd have spent at a Pour House high-top.

The examples here include closed casual bars, a 2025 destination-dining opening, and a listed quick-service location.

Old Town's Festival Calendar

In September 2025, the Old Town Merchants & Residents Association launched Old Town Oktoberfest, a three-day street festival on the 1300 block of North Wells, across from the Cobbler Square Lofts. It returns for its second year September 18 through 20, 2026, with bratwurst, stein-holding contests called Masskrugstemmen, and a new Sunday dog parade with categories running from "Wee Wieners" to "Big Bratwursts."

The festival offers a scheduled gathering on Wells Street. OTMRA runs a second signature event too, the Wells Street Art Festival each June, drawing more than 50,000 visitors and 130-plus artists to the same corridor. Both events are excellent additions to the calendar. The festivals are scheduled events, rather than everyday bar service.

The Old World Side of Wells Street Hasn't Moved

Wells Street's dining mix includes longstanding businesses and newer concepts. Topo Gigio has served Tuscan food from 1516 N. Wells for decades. Twin Anchors and the House of Glunz, founded in 1888 by Louis Glunz and billed as the oldest family-owned wine shop in the country, anchor the same stretch. Kamehachi, often cited as Chicago's first sushi restaurant, is still owned and run by three generations of women. Professor Pizza markets itself explicitly as the pre-show stop for Second City, sitting steps from the theater's door, a reminder that the comedy and theater crowd along Wells still needs somewhere to eat before curtain.

Alongside these businesses, Shō opened in August 2025, while FARE has listed an Old Town address tagged for a summer 2026 opening; the newer concepts described here offer different dining formats.

What This Means If You Live Here

Wells Street offers fewer casual bar options than it did two years ago. Shō offers a $155 tasting menu, and FARE has listed an Old Town location tagged for a summer 2026 opening.

That split is worth watching if you're paying attention to how a neighborhood's daily rhythm shifts over time, because it tends to show up in foot traffic patterns long before it shows up in anything official. For now, the merchants' association's three-day festival is one of the scheduled events on Wells Street.

If you're curious how these kinds of neighborhood shifts tend to play out over the longer term, or what they can mean for property values and demand in a corridor like this one, Teddy Burns Real Estate knows Old Town well enough to talk through it in plain terms. Let's Connect.