How do you get into Watershed?
We have not confirmed it. Watershed is in the directory because it calls itself a speakeasy, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
The drinks at Watershed
The current drinks list is published on the venue’s own site — see the menu.
Beyond what the venue publishes we have not verified a list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Blood and Sand, Bobby Burns, and Rob Roy are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — Watershed occupies the Tree Studio Building and Annexes, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 74000756. The listing is a federal record maintained by the National Park Service, and the nomination document is the primary source for the building’s architectural and social history.
National Register reference 74000756 · NPS nomination document
Where Watershed sits
Watershed is in Chicago, Illinois, in Cook County, in the Midwest of the United States.
Our directory currently lists 24 speakeasies and hidden bars in Chicago. The full list is on our guide to hidden bars in Chicago.
Measured from the map pins, the closest of those to Watershed are Lulu’s Speakeasy, about 400 m away, Paraiso Speakeasy, about 500 m away, and Santa’s Secret Treehouse, about 600 m away.
Illinois holds 71 listed venues in this directory. See them all on our Illinois speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in Illinois
Illinois came under national prohibition on 17 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect and the Volstead Act defined an intoxicating beverage as anything above one half of one per cent alcohol — a threshold strict enough to close breweries that had expected to survive.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in Illinois.
What the newspapers recorded in Chicago
Searching the Library of Congress run of Illinois newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from Chicago:
- The daily worker, December 15, 1931 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, July 14, 1927 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, August 5, 1927 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, October 16, 1930 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
Hours published by the venue:
- Tuesday to Sunday, 5pm to 1am
Hours as published on the venue’s own site, retrieved 9 October 2026.
You can reach Watershed by phone on (312) 266-7677, through its own website, and on Facebook and Instagram.
The address is 601 North State Street, Chicago, IL 60654. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For Watershed we hold street address, telephone number, official website, social accounts, opening hours, a published drinks list, and a listed-building record. We do not yet hold an online booking link.
It is in the directory because the description in the source data describes it as a speakeasy.
Two independent open datasets, OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps, both carry this venue at this location. Agreement between them is the strongest existence check we can make without visiting.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.