Geek Bar S Fans Rescue It From Oblivion But Was It Worth Saving

One night at the end of July, Geek Bar’s management sounded a clarion call for bailout money from their patrons. Rob Stein, the Wicker Park gastropub’s so-called “Galactic Overlord,” announced to the crowd that had gathered for geek trivia night, “We need some help to make sure Geek Bar stays in this neighborhood and that we can continue to hang out with all of you.”

The July fund-raiser wasn’t the first time the bar’s management had asked the public to help foot their bills. Two summers ago, Zoltan and former CMO Matt Wolff (who passed away in May after a bout with cancer) launched a month-long Kickstarter campaign that raised $44,538. That original Kickstarter page now feels like a piece of Geek Bar fan fiction. It described a massive nerd culture-themed bar/restaurant to open in the Lakeview area by March 2014, complete with bartenders dressed in lab coats who’d pour smoking cocktails from behind a themed “SCIENCE! bar” and a second cyberspace-themed bar “with cutting edge cocktails and dark, cool decor.” Other expensive indulgences listed included 24-foot wooden tables custom built with reclaimed wood and iron to cater to the needs of board game enthusiasts and a promise to hire a professional sound engineer to make Geek Bar a “technological masterpiece in acoustics.” That was if the Kickstarter earned $40,000. If the campaign reached $70,000? They’d purchase a full-size replica of the Iron Throne from HBO’s Game of Thrones.

  Nine and a half months after it first began slinging Cthulhu-themed cocktails, Geek Bar Beta still feels like an experiment, one that hasn’t gone according to plan. Former employees say paychecks began bouncing last fall, soon after the bar opened. 

  Zoltan says he doesn’t feel good about bounced payroll checks and lost health insurance, and he acknowledges mistakes in “unsustainable staffing” led to layoffs. But he says money secured from the loan and the GoFundMe campaign has gone to pay current and past employees.

  Yantos, who quit Geek Bar last month, says she is “heartbroken” about how the place has been run.