One recent afternoon Michael Roper, proprietor and barman at Andersonville beer bar the Hopleaf, was entertaining a question that has troubled the belly of many a Chicago nighthawk: How is it that a first-rate city with world-class culinary aspirations can be so second-rate when it comes to late-night grub? “Midwestern values,” Roper said, clearing a plate that seconds ago held a meaty portion of duck leg confit. “Most city people here don’t eat late. Even in neighborhoods with great population density—the Gold Coast, for instance—there are very few places to eat after 10:30.”
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While that’s not exactly true—there are plenty of taquerias, diners, and fast-food joints, plus the occasional Kamehachi or Iggy’s—there’s certainly a scarcity of higher-quality late-night dining. Roper, until recently anyway, had been banking on the hope that there was a market out there for him to tap: initially that was the raison d’etre of his bar’s new dinner menu. That, he says, and serving tavern fare you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.
Roper thinks of himself as a bit of an iconoclast, and his bar bears that out. He’s never served regular old beer (“macrobrews,” in the parlance), and he refuses—despite some pressure—to have a television. “It changes the whole room,” he says. “It’s a conversation killer.” He has no interest in pandering to the coveted twentysomething demographic. (“The products we carry, the music we play, the whole vibe is not about attracting the next batch of kids”), and with the new menu—dinner service started in July—he’s aiming to go against the grain as well.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Andre J. Jackson.
