Chicago's oldest continuously operating nightclub, where Al Capone's booth is still reserved and ghost reports come with the jazz
4802 N. Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640
Research updated June 2026
Age
21+
Cost
$
No cover charge most evenings; weekend cover applies for headline acts. Drinks priced as a bar. Cash preferred.
Access
Limited Access
Historic bar interior with narrow aisles; limited accessibility.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1907 · Chicago's longest continuously operating nightclub · Al Capone and Prohibition-era organized crime history · Joe E. Lewis attack (1927)
The Green Mill's origins trace to 1907, when the venue opened as a tavern at 4802 N. Broadway in the Uptown neighborhood. By 1914 it had been renamed the Green Mill Gardens, a reference to Paris's Moulin Rouge — the owner chose green over red to distinguish it from a nearby red-light district. It became one of Chicago's top entertainment venues during the 1920s, featuring live performance and the underground tunnels that would later figure in its bootlegging history.
During Prohibition, 'Machine Gun' Jack McGurn — born Vincenzo Antonio Gibaldi, and one of Al Capone's most trusted lieutenants — assumed partial ownership of the Green Mill. Capone's organization reportedly paid McGurn 25 percent of the venue as part of an arrangement for his loyalty to the outfit. Capone himself frequented the club, occupying a curved corner booth positioned with sightlines to both entrances. That booth remains in the room.
In 1927, the club's headline entertainer, singer and comedian Joe E. Lewis, received a better offer from a competing venue and informed McGurn he would not renew. McGurn's men broke into Lewis's hotel room and attacked him, slashing his throat and cutting his tongue. Lewis survived, though his vocal cords were severely damaged. He eventually rebuilt his career as a comedian rather than a singer, and the attack inspired the 1957 film The Joker Is Wild, starring Frank Sinatra as Lewis.
Capone was imprisoned in 1931. The Green Mill continued through various operators and revitalization periods. In 1986, venue owner Dave Jemilo undertook a restoration of the Art Deco interior and established the Green Mill's current identity as one of Chicago's foremost jazz clubs. The Uptown Poetry Slam, launched the same year, has run on Sunday nights ever since.
The venue was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a Chicago Landmark. It operates today much as it did in the 1920s, with the original bar, the Capone booth, and nightly jazz performance.
Sources
Paranormal reports at the Green Mill are specific to the building's physical spaces rather than attached to named individuals. Staff who open the bar in the morning have reported hearing piano music from outside, only to find the instrument silent the moment they enter. Workers in the underground tunnels — used for bootleg liquor during Prohibition and still accessible below the building — describe objects found displaced between shifts, cold spots with no ventilation source, and the sound of men's voices from empty corridors.
Bartender Laura Castro, a self-described non-believer, described in Chicago media interviews finding a bottle cap, straw, and cocktail sword arranged in a precise line on a stack of papers she had set down a few minutes earlier. No one else was in the building at the time.
A psychic brought to the venue by a tour operator identified three presences during a session: a woman who favors sitting at the piano, a former employee, and a flamboyant regular whose signature move is entering dramatically through the front door. None of these accounts have been attributed to specific named historical figures.
The Capone booth — still reserved and still pointed at both entrances — draws paranormal enthusiasts as well as jazz fans. Reports of voices from below the booth, attributed in tour narratives to Capone's ghost, are the most popular but least documented of the claims. The venue's documented criminal history is well-established; the paranormal layer is reported but unverified.
Notable Entities
The Green Mill hosts live jazz nightly, with sets beginning around 9 p.m. Al Capone's curved booth — positioned to observe both entrances — remains in the room. The bar also hosts the Uptown Poetry Slam on Sunday nights, running since 1986. No reservation required for most nights; arrive early for prime seating.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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