How do you get into Golden Teardrops?
We have not confirmed it. Golden Teardrops is in the directory because it calls itself a speakeasy, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
Drinks of the era
We have not seen this venue’s own list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Bronx, Monkey Gland, and Hanky Panky are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
Where Golden Teardrops sits
Golden Teardrops 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 Golden Teardrops are Meadowlark, about 250 m away, Speakeasy Chicago, about 3.4 km away, and The Gatsby Speakeasy, about 4.1 km 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
You can reach Golden Teardrops by phone on (773) 770-3414, through its own website, and on Facebook.
The address is 2101 North California Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For Golden Teardrops we hold street address, telephone number, official website, and social accounts. We do not yet hold opening hours, a published drinks list, an online booking link, or a listed-building record.
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.