Night Heron Wine Bar

From Block Club Chicago – April 28, 2025

HYDE PARK — A prolific Hyde Park shopkeeper is set to open a wine bar in the neighborhood by the end of the year.

Steven Lucy — a Hyde Parker, owner of Open Produce and 57th Street Wines, and part-owner of Cornell Florist — plans to open the Night Heron this fall at 1636 E. 55th St., previously a BMO Bank branch.

The wine bar plans to prioritize small wineries and natural wines, with a similar curation process to that of 57th Street Wines, Lucy said.

A “locally focused” beer menu, cocktails and a light food menu featuring cheese plates and charcuterie boards are also planned, he said.

“I love that block,” said Lucy, whose Open Produce grocery is across the street from the wine bar. “I think east Hyde Park is interesting. It’s a little less dominated by the university than some parts of west Hyde Park. It’s near the lake, there’s residential density, with those high-rises all within a couple blocks. It’s also where I live and where I grew up — it’s home.”

City Council approved the property’s rezoning this month, while the business still needs to secure a building permit for renovations and a liquor license before opening, Lucy said. He’s eyeing a grand opening in October or November.

The bar draws its name from the black-crowned night heron, an endangered bird which nevertheless has a thriving colony in Lincoln Park and has been spotted on the South Side. The Chicago Black-crowned Night-Heron Project even placed decoys on islands in Jackson Park’s East Lagoon this year to try to encourage the birds to nest in the park.

The Night Heron follows other avian bar names in and around the South Side, from the nearby Falcon Inn and the defunct Eagle in Hyde Park to the Skylark, Lucy said.

Tentative hours for the bar’s launch will be 4-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 4 p.m.-midnight Fridays, noon-midnight Saturdays and noon-10 p.m. Sundays.

The Night Heron will add to Hyde Park’s relative lack of “chill” evening hangouts, Lucy said. In terms of events or recurring programs, he intends for the bar to “react to what the neighborhood is asking for, rather than coming with our own vision,” he said.

“I hope people in the neighborhood will come up with the stuff they want to do in the space, and we can facilitate it: poetry nights, trivia, whatever,” Lucy said. “I feel like Hyde Park needs this space or wants this space.”

The bar will have a side patio facing Cornell Avenue and one room inside, which will generally be open to the public and will also be available for private event rentals.

Long-term plans for the Night Heron include offering morning coffee service and pastries and an afternoon lunch menu, but “I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew” with the grand opening, Lucy said.

Hyde Park is already home to beloved dive bars such as the Cove Lounge, Falcon Inn and Woodlawn Tap, or Jimmy’s. The Night Heron looks to join Cantina Rosa — the recently opened agave-focused cocktail bar at 5230 S. Harper Ave. — in expanding Hyde Parkers’ drinking options beyond dives, Lucy said.

“As Hyde Park’s drinking scene matures, I feel like we’re two complementary contributors to that,” he said.

One ongoing concern affecting Lucy’s wine shop, the entire wine industry — and the global economy — will carry over to the Night Heron: the unpredictability of President Donald Trump’s economic policies.

Trump placed a 10 percent tax on imports from virtually every country this month. He’s threatened taxes of 20 percent on imports from top winemaking nations such as France, Italy and Spain via the European Union, and in March he threatened to tax European wines at 200 percent if the EU places a tariff on U.S. whiskey. The president in March also placed a 25 percent tax on imports of aluminum, used for cans of alcoholic drinks.

Tariffs and trade war threats aren’t necessarily an existential threat to the Night Heron, but they don’t make it any easier to open up a wine bar, Lucy said.

If tariffs have a drastic effect on wine imports, “I have the opportunity to [shift focus to] beer or domestic wine,” he said. “It is possible, in the most extreme case, that it could put us out of business. But I’m hoping not.”