The bar itself spans 60 feet from the front of the space to the back, and has three to four bartenders behind it on an average busy night. As an all-day bar typically open from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m., you can easily find yourself meeting friends for coffee mid-morning, or gathering for drinks after a concert in Uptown or a movie on Southport. There is a small room in the back with photobooth strips instead of wallpaper, where you can really get a sense of just how beloved this bar is to the community. One time, the day after dreaming up a web series idea with my friends, I went to Long Room and stumbled upon a Chicago screenwriter meet-up.
"This is so serendipitous," I told the group, which meets at Long Room on the third Monday of each month. Another time, my friend and I stumbled upon a table of girls making pickles in the back room.
“We host a monthly pickle party,” they exclaimed in unison, handing us jars, brine, and crunchy produce. My friend and I derailed our original plans because when you’re asked to join a pickle party, you have to say yes. Community is at the cornerstone of The Long Room.
When I first discovered Long Room several years ago, I noticed the geometric, bubbly logo featured throughout, including the sculptural dividers in the bar. I commented on how it looks straight out of 2001—modern for back then, but nostalgic now.
The logo also reminded me of Music Choice TV, a cable channel from the early 2000s that only I seem to remember. Overlaid on a black screen were trailing animations in the same rippling rainbow color scheme as the neon, LED light installation on the ceiling of the underground walkway in Terminal 1 at O’Hare. I distinctly remember the rain animation of puddles and bubbles on Music Choice TV, akin to the logo at Long Room; there were also animations of feet and paw prints. Music Choice TV is a core memory for me, and Long Room’s logo awakens it. Long Room isn’t trying to play up nostalgia for the sake of marketing to a specific demographic—it just hasn’t been updated in over twenty years. And nor should it.
Aside from aesthetics, music is central to the energy at Long Room. On a recent visit, I heard “Plainclothes Man” by Heatmiser playing and stopped in my tracks (I was seated on one of the barstools, but still).
We're made for each other, that you pay me any mind
Just goes to show my continual decline
I tuned into the speakers and smiled, hearing one of my favorite songs. I looked at the iPad on the backbar and saw the familiar pink-hued album cover for Mic City Sons staring back at me, confirming my ear was correct. I immediately had to compliment the bartender on his song choice.
Ryan Rezvani has been bartending at Long Room for almost nine years, and he was the bartender whose music I praised that night. “When I meet other people who are big Elliot Smith people,” Ryan told me over the phone after I recounted this memory, “Then I’m like, ‘Alright, you’re my people.'"
Before bartending, Ryan was a CPS elementary school teacher, but in the summers and on the weekends, he bartended at The Riviera and The Vic.
“It was perfect,” Ryan said, noting that he is a huge music fan and plays in a band called Light Coma. “My neighbor was a manager [at The Riv and The Vic], and did that part-time while he worked at Urban Outfitters.” Does it get more 2009 than that?
Mixology was always an interest of Ryan’s, making bitters and syrups in his house (he would later go on to start a business with his ex called The Bitter Ex), but he had never bartended before. Eventually, after working part-time at The Riv and The Vic for a while, he stopped teaching and started bartending full-time.
“[My manager] would say, ‘Just tell me what show you want to see and I’ll put you in the bar, and you can watch the show,’” Ryan said. The Decemberists, The Walkmen, Elvis Costello, and The Black Crowes are just some of the bands Ryan saw during his tenure at the two venues. "It was a very different experience [than working in a bar] because there were no regulars,” Ryan said. He didn’t have to create a vibe while working at a music venue; it was just a volume game. And while the major perk of working at a venue is seeing your favorite about-to-blow-up indie rock band take center stage, a lot of concert-goers didn’t tip well. "All of us agreed, though, that the hippie, jam band shows were always the best, and we loved those customers,” Ryan said. Ticket holders for those shows saved up all their money and really made a meal of it. A little tipsy and stoned, fans of bands like Leftover Salmon and Phish would linger at Ryan’s bar, chatting and drinking the last of the PBRs.
When Ryan got to the Long Room, the tips were steady, the patrons were regular, and the vibe was built in.
“[At night], the lights get dimmed really dark, accentuating the mural on the wall and bouncing off the mirrors,” Ryan said of Long Room’s interior. “We put out candles, and the light in the space is more diffused.”
Unlike some neighborhood bars, the Long Room is open during the daytime, too. People drink coffee and tea, or eat brunch and co-work, and the energy of the room reflects that. You might hear more upbeat, pop music from The Beatles before 4:00 p.m., but unless someone forgets to turn over the playlist come dusk, that wouldn’t fly for the evening shift.
“If we don’t turn the playlist over, it could really slow us down,” Ryan said. The music is not only for the customer, but also for the staff. “We’re cranking and building three, four cocktails at a time, trying to work as fast as we can and pulling in a third bartender, and at 7:30 pm, the [daytime playlist] is not helping. I need something with a beat.”
Every bartender at the Long Room has their own unique taste and has to submit their playlists to ownership for approval before they can press play on a bustling Thursday or Friday night. Nick, another bartender at Long Room, favors psychedelic rock like Unknown Mortal Orchestra, as well as more R&B and funk artists, like Menahan Street Band, while Jeff, one of the GMs who’s in a hard rock band, infuses his playlists with a lot of guitar.
“Maybe [guitar music] is good to throw on in the first hour to get us going,” Ryan said of Jeff’s music, which also consists of a lot of Elliot Smith, “But then we’ll temper it later with something a little more vibey.” As the crowd starts to thin out, and a late-night crew of rowdy servers and fuzzy third dates starts to trickle in, Ryan might play jazz and soul music, like Bobby Womack or Nina Simone.
Ryan describes a night at Long Room like he’s building a perfectly layered cocktail or two, and then maybe throwing back a beer and a shot at the end of the night. There is a constant ebb and flow behind the bar as well as at the bar, and the music reflects that.
“A lot of times, the music is based on the room and who it’s filled with. Who do we know, or what can we feel?” Ryan said. If one of their regulars is celebrating a 40th birthday in the back room, for example, they might lean into that with something from the 90s or early aughts.
When Ryan first started, he worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, with the added challenge that Sunday was slow and the team was trying to revive it. With Ryan’s help, they breathed life back into Sunday’s, and they did so through music.
“I decided to do an all hip-hop night,” Ryan said, sharing that his favorite band of all time is A Tribe Called Quest. “I’m a 90’s hip-hop and rap guy.”
Ryan loves MF DOOM, too, but first knew him as Zev Love X, one of DOOM’s characters/aliases affiliated with K.M.D., a rap group composed of DOOM and his brother Dingilizwe Dumile, known professionally as DJ Subroc. As time went on, Ryan got into punk, indie rock, prog rock, and noise rock, until eventually falling in love with MF DOOM and realizing it was the same person from K.M.D.
“15 or 20 years later, I figured it out,” Ryan said, gushing over DOOM’s raw, sample-heavy, and oftentimes funny music. His “Sunday Night Hip Hop” playlist consists of Leaders of the New School, Public Enemy, and Funky DL, as well as Chicago natives Common, Lupe Fiasco, and old Kanye. As we talked more about hip hop as well as other genres Ryan loves, like indie rock, it became apparent to me that the history and interconnectedness of music is at the foundation of Ryan’s adoration. While his music tastes have evolved, there is a flowing, incandescent red thread throughout his listening years.
“There is a lot of stuff that I haven’t listened to in forever… but it’s still important, it’s the building blocks for everything that’s come after,” Ryan said.
Like The Long Room, Ryan’s music will always evolve, always grow, and always welcome something or someone new, yet not lose sight of the old.
Ryan's Top Five Last Call Songs:
1. "If I Had My Way" by Thee Oh Sees
2. "Move Somethin'" by Reflection Eternal (Talib Kweli)
3. "You let My Tyres Down" by Tropical Fuck Storm
4. "All Night" by Chance the Rapper
5. "Rhymes Like Dimes" by MF DOOM