By Paul Turner
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Jones lives in Wheaton now, but he’s spent most of his life in the neighborhood. He grew up as one of six children raised by his mother in an apartment kitty-corner from what’s now Murphy’s, by the bleacher entrance to the ballpark. He graduated from Lake View High in 1970 and went straight into the army. Jones served during the Vietnam war, but he never got closer to battle than Germany. He married his high school sweetheart and then was discharged in 1972. He came back to Chicago and, because the government “paid my whole tuition and gave me 500 bucks a month spending money,” he enrolled at Northeastern. After graduating in 1976 (and divorcing his wife shortly after) he got the job that would start him on the path toward tavern ownership, managing stand-up bars at O’Hare. In 1980 he went to work for Edwardo’s, managing a franchise in Mount Prospect. He also began planning for his own place, saving money and scouting locations. In 1984 he spotted an ad in the Tribune for a bar with a kitchen near Wrigley. He bought the equipment and liquor license for $25,000, signed the lease, and went into business with his former stepfather (Tai, who’s been out of the picture for ten years).
The Tap, which had previously housed “a Puerto Rican gay bar, a German restaurant, and a dart bar,” opened in August 1984, stocked–illegally–with six bottles of booze and a couple cases of beer purchased from Crown Liquors, down the street. (He quickly got in line with distributors, the only legitimate way for a tavern owner to buy his hooch.)
Jones got a less pleasant surprise last spring. He was expecting to renew his usual five-year lease when he got a phone call from Fred Hoffman, who owns a string of upscale bars and restaurants including Alumni Club, Excalibur, and Magnum’s. “He told me, ‘I hate to tell you this, but it’s business. I bought the building and you’re out.’ I never even knew the building was for sale. If my landlord would have offered it to me first, I don’t know if I could’ve gotten the money together. Several people have since told me they would’ve backed me….I’ve had so many people come up and tell me that they met their wife or husband here.” Jones chuckles, “Or that they’ve had sex here. I once walked in on this girl going down on a guy in the back. I just left them alone.” Jones himself met his current wife at the bar. “She used to come in with her boyfriend and hang out with me when I tended bar. Then one day she comes in without the boyfriend and I ask why and she says he’s history. We had a bowling team that bowled that night at Marigold and we needed somebody and I asked her if she wanted to fill in. That led to a few drinks and the drinks led to…”
