Southport Lanes is ready to auction off all of its belongings, including the sign hanging over the entrance, bowling lanes and the 99-year-old bar surface, after efforts to bring the Lakeview business into a second century fell short.
The bar, restaurant and bowling alley at 3325 N. Southport Ave. is permanently closed after efforts to revive the business were unsuccessful, said Lacey Irby, a spokeswoman for the group that owns the building at Southport and Henderson Street.
The business had reopened in mid-July after coronavirus restrictions lifted before closing again in the fall, and has not reopened since.
“After giving it a lot of thought, building ownership decided to go the route of auctioning off the assets for the business formerly known as Southport Lanes,” Irby said. “Ownership, unfortunately, does not see the business recovering any time soon, so the business is now permanently closed.”
It’s one of the longest-running and best-known businesses in Chicago to shut down in the approximately 16 months since COVID-19 began devastating the economy.
Steve Soble, who has owned the business since 1991 and also is one of the building’s owners, declined to comment and referred questions to Irby.
Southport Lanes closed last September after 98 years in business. Its colorful and often unlawful history included times as a tavern, bowling alley, speak-easy, brothel and illegal off-track horse betting venue.
More than three months after Southport Lanes closed, Soble said he hoped to be able to reopen the business by this spring in part because of a $70,000 state grant and other potential federal funding.
“The state of Illinois grant definitely allowed the owners to pay some bills during the pandemic, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to keep going,” Irby said.
Previously, the business received a $200,000 federal Paycheck Protection Program loan, the Tribune reported in January.
Glenview-based Winternitz Industrial Auctioneers & Appraisers will sell Southport Lanes’ equipment and furnishings in an online auction from July 13 through July 20. Items for sale include the venue’s famous sign, bowling lanes and equipment, and pool tables and equipment, according to the Winternitz website.
Other items available in the auction include kitchen equipment, televisions, furniture and two large murals.
The property was one of many ornate structures built by breweries in Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So-called tied houses sold only beers of a particular brewery, including a few Schlitz buildings such as the one that housed Southport Lanes.
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The Schlitz building on Southport became a bowling alley and took on its current name during Prohibition. That was in the aftermath of the 1918 pandemic that killed more than 50 million people that is often referred to as the Spanish flu.
Four bowling lanes were added in 1922. At the time the business closed, the pins still were set by hand.
In the 1920s, the building began operating as a speak-easy with a brothel above it, and Mayor Anton Cermak was said to hold weekly poker games in a secret room, according to a history of the building on the Southport Lanes website.
The building’s future is unclear.
Last year Sobel said the owners were seeking one or more retail tenants to take over the 7,500-square-foot space.
Twice last year, the trust that owns the building extended the maturity date of a loan from Lakeside Bank. The mortgage now comes due in October 2025, according to Cook County property records.
Irby said the building is not on the market for sale, but she declined to comment otherwise on what the property’s owners plan to do with it.
The building’s owners paid $461,335 for it in 1991, according to Cook County property records. Even after the pandemic, that is likely a fraction of its value today on what in recent years has evolved into one of the top retail streets on the city’s North Side.
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