Formerly: Pop Morse's Roadhouse · Green Mill Gardens
Chicago, Illinois · Founded 1907
Chicago’s Green Mill carries a disputed pre-Prohibition lineage, a jazz legacy, and gangland stories that require more caution than its folklore usually receives.
The Green Mill is an active jazz club at 4802 North Broadway in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Its site developed from Pop Morse’s Roadhouse into Green Mill Gardens in 1910, while the present cocktail-lounge space reflects later rebuilding and revival rather than an untouched Prohibition-era interior.
National Trust history traces the site’s origin to Pop Morse’s Roadhouse, a bar and beer garden near Graceland and St. Boniface cemeteries. Other research citing city records argues the predecessor saloon was already operating by 1898.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “The Green Mill in Chicago,” March 3, 2016; Robert Loerzel, “Pop Morse’s Roadhouse and the Myth of 1907,” March 23, 2023
Tom Chamales developed the property as Green Mill Gardens, an entertainment venue whose name alluded to Paris’s Moulin Rouge.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “The Green Mill in Chicago,” March 3, 2016
Entertainer Joe E. Lewis was badly attacked after trying to leave the Green Mill for another club; he survived and later continued a comedy career. The exact role of Jack McGurn in ordering the assault remains unproven in the sources reviewed here.
Source: Chicago Tribune, “Gangster underworld?,” June 28, 2007; Robert Loerzel, “Looking for Al Capone,” March 12, 2024
A fire damaged or destroyed parts of the former Green Mill Gardens complex. Historical analysis cautions that the current Green Mill Cocktail Lounge space was not the same unchanged room used during Capone’s era.
Source: Robert Loerzel, “Looking for Al Capone,” March 12, 2024
Dave Jemilo opened the current incarnation of the Green Mill after purchasing the business from former owner Steve Brend.
Source: Green Mill official website; National Trust for Historic Preservation, “The Green Mill in Chicago,” March 3, 2016
Marc Smith began the Uptown Poetry Slam at the Green Mill, an event widely recognized as foundational to the modern poetry-slam movement. The exact first-event date requires verification from a primary or institutional poetry source.
Source: Chicago Tribune, “Thirty years later, Green Mill owner Dave Jemilo thrives at his jazz club,” June 14, 2016
Every claim gets rated. A business's own website can never earn "documented."
The story is extensively repeated, and the current owner has identified a booth associated with the lore. But Chicago Tribune reporting quotes historian John Binder that Capone’s connection to the Green Mill was “peripheral at best,” while later research found no credible primary evidence establishing Capone’s regular patronage or a designated booth.
Basement corridors and service areas beneath the building are real and historically served practical coal and supply functions. The leap from those physical spaces to a proven Outfit escape-and-smuggling system is unsupported; historians quoted in Chicago Tribune reporting and later research dispute it.
No reliable evidence reviewed here establishes Capone as owner. Accounts of Jack McGurn holding a partial interest are repeated, but their basis is disputed, and that would not make Capone the proprietor in any event.
The attack on Lewis and its connection to his attempted move to another club are well-established in retrospective reporting. McGurn is commonly blamed, but this review did not locate a contemporaneous record establishing that he ordered the assault.
The Green Mill’s official history, the National Trust, and Chicago Tribune reporting all place Jemilo’s acquisition and reopening in 1986. That event marks the current incarnation of the club.
The Green Mill was built as a Prohibition speakeasy.
The site’s road-house and beer-garden history predates Prohibition. National Trust history identifies Pop Morse’s Roadhouse as the predecessor, followed by Green Mill Gardens in 1910.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “The Green Mill in Chicago,” March 3, 2016
The current Green Mill Cocktail Lounge is an untouched room from Capone’s Prohibition era.
The original garden complex and the present cocktail-lounge space are not the same unchanged physical setting. Research notes that the present room was rebuilt after a 1933 fire and cautions against projecting current-room details back onto the Prohibition period.
Source: Robert Loerzel, “Looking for Al Capone,” March 12, 2024
The underground spaces beneath the Green Mill prove that mobsters used escape tunnels.
Basement corridors existed for practical building purposes, including coal and supplies. The evidence reviewed does not prove they were used as Outfit escape or bootlegging tunnels.
Source: Chicago Tribune, “Gangster underworld?,” June 28, 2007; Robert Loerzel, “Looking for Al Capone,” March 12, 2024
The Green Mill began in 1907.
1907 is the commonly repeated founding date, but research citing Chicago city records argues the Pop Morse predecessor operated by 1898. The site’s exact business-start date remains disputed.
Source: National Trust for Historic Preservation, “The Green Mill in Chicago,” March 3, 2016; Robert Loerzel, “Pop Morse’s Roadhouse and the Myth of 1907,” March 23, 2023
The Green Mill’s endurance rests on a durable identity as a live-jazz room and on Dave Jemilo’s 1986 revival of the business. The club’s colorful gangster mythology attracts attention, but its documented cultural importance lies more securely in its jazz programming and its connection to Marc Smith’s influential Uptown Poetry Slam.
It is a famous Green Mill story, but it is not securely documented. Chicago Tribune reporting quoted historian John Binder as saying Capone’s connection was “peripheral at best,” and researcher Robert Loerzel found no credible primary evidence establishing Capone as a regular patron or proving the famous booth story.
The building has basement corridors and service spaces, and historical reporting says they were used for practical coal and supply functions. There is no solid evidence that the Chicago Outfit built or used them as escape tunnels or liquor-smuggling routes, despite the popular story.
The most common date is 1907, when preservation histories place Pop Morse’s Roadhouse at the site. That date is disputed: research using Chicago city records argues that Pop Morse’s saloon was operating by 1898. Green Mill Gardens is more securely placed in 1910 under Tom Chamales.
Joe E. Lewis was attacked in 1927 after attempting to leave the Green Mill for a competing club. He survived, though the injuries damaged his singing voice; later accounts commonly blame Jack McGurn, but this review did not locate direct evidence proving McGurn ordered the assault.
Dave Jemilo was identified as the Green Mill’s owner in 2016 reporting by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Chicago Tribune, after purchasing the business in 1986. A current Illinois corporate filing, property record, or recent authoritative report is still needed to verify the business’s ownership arrangement as of 2026.
4802 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640
(773) 878-5552
The Green Mill presents live music nightly; check its official calendar for current set times, entry policies, and payment requirements before visiting.