Everywhere Social Club: Queer Sober Bar Opening in Uptown

Everywhere Social Club, a queer-led sober gathering space, plans to open this summer on the 12th floor rooftop of 5050 N. Broadway in Uptown.

The club will operate as a coffee shop during daytime hours and shift to a mocktail-forward bar at night, hosting everything from yoga workshops and lectures to DJ sets and live entertainment. Its founders launched a Kickstarter Tuesday with a goal of raising $100,000 to finish the buildout, targeting a late-July opening.

The space sits inside the Draper, a building that development firm Cedar Street converted from offices into apartments in 2019. At 12 floors up on Broadway, it offers an unobstructed view of the Chicago skyline that co-founder Zach Walz didn’t take lightly when scouting locations.

“We saw this listing, and it was perfect for what we wanted to create,” Walz said. “By being in Uptown, we are purposely a destination away from the Northalsted bars. And the sunsets are going to be insane.”

That distance from Northalsted is a feature, not an oversight. Everywhere isn’t trying to replicate the strip of bars along Halsted Street. It’s building something different. A place for queer people, their allies, and anyone who feels pushed to the margins by mainstream nightlife culture, but without alcohol as the social glue.

The founding team brings a range of professional backgrounds to the project, and several of them stopped drinking before the idea took shape. Co-founder Morgan Higgins, who has a hospitality background, gave up alcohol three years ago. Co-founder Dan Quinn spent two decades working in nightlife before stepping back from drinking himself.

Walz grew up watching his mother struggle with alcoholism. When she finally got sober, she didn’t just lose a habit. She lost her entire social network along with it. That experience sits at the core of what Everywhere is trying to fix.

“I want to create a space where people can find their kin and don’t have to give up what they love just because they want to drink less,” he said.

Co-founder and yoga teacher Rachel Ablavi said the club addresses something she felt personally after cutting back on alcohol. Dancing, going out, being social without a drink in hand proved harder than expected once bars were the default setting.

“As a queer person who more recently stopped drinking, I lost the joy of going out, dancing and being uninhibited,” Ablavi said. “Finding a place that focuses on meeting people, with low lights and heavy bass, but without alcohol, was super enticing.”

The Block Club Chicago coverage of Everywhere’s launch captures a growing conversation around sober social options in Chicago’s LGBTQ+ communities, where bars have historically anchored nightlife and community building alike.

Sober bars and alcohol-free event spaces have gained traction across the country, responding to a documented shift in drinking habits, particularly among younger adults. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism tracks alcohol use disorder affecting tens of millions of Americans, and advocacy around harm reduction has increasingly pushed into nightlife spaces. Chicago’s scene hasn’t seen many permanent venues stake that ground.

Everywhere intends to be permanent.

It won’t just be a dry bar. The programming model sets it apart. Workshops. Lectures. Community events. The kind of programming you’d find at a neighborhood cultural center, layered into a space that still brings the music and the atmosphere people want from a night out. The Kickstarter campaign framing reflects that community-building intention.

“Making this a community effort is important,” Walz said.

Uptown itself carries weight in that framing. The neighborhood has long been one of Chicago’s more economically and culturally diverse areas, running from Andersonville’s edges down toward Ravenswood and Sheridan Road. It has housed addiction recovery services, community mental health organizations, and longtime LGBTQ+ residents who predate the Boystown branding that took hold further south. Planting Everywhere there, rather than on Halsted, sends a signal.

The 12th floor outdoor space gives the club something most Chicago nightlife venues don’t have. Open sky over the North Side, a skyline that stretches south toward the Loop. That view is part of the product.

“Everywhere is a place where people can connect instead of trying to drown out the world,” Walz said.

The $100,000 Kickstarter goal covers finishing the space’s buildout. If the fundraising holds, the club aims to open its doors in late July.