Georgianna Schinagl, known to most as “George,” ran a popular North Side tavern and restaurant on Granville Avenue and was active in Edgewater community affairs.
An entrepreneur who also ran a travel agency for several years Mrs. Schinagl, 79, died of heart failure Sunday, March 28, in Kindred Hospital Chicago-North, said Fred Morrow, a friend who served as her caretaker.
She was born Georgianna Urbancik in what is now the Little Village neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side. She attended Farragut High School, where her classmates included actress Kim Novak.
She and her former husband, Ladd Schinagl, briefly ran Ladd’s Bavarian Pub in Elmhurst in the late 1960s or early 1970s, said her son Lee. In addition to food and drink, Ladd’s offered standup comedy and musical acts, he said.
“I don’t think Elmhurst was really ready for the supper club concept,” he joked.
An experienced traveler who leaned toward destinations in Mexico and South America, Mrs. Schinagl’s travel agency, Georgianna Tours, specialized in commercial travel and was located at the Devon-Sheridan-Broadway intersection.
Living on North Sheridan Road with her partner Paul Wenger, she became involved in local organizations that included the Edgewater Community Council, Morrow said.
Around 1991, she and Wenger purchased Gino’s North, a venerable bar and restaurant near the Granville CTA train stop. (The bar is not connected to Gino’s East pizza restaurant.) She worked behind the bar and continued to run the place for several years after Wenger’s death in 2003, said Peggy Gelsomino, the establishment’s longtime cook.
“She was independent, very strict on how things operated,” Gelsomino said. “She didn’t take any nonsense from anybody.”
Mrs. Schinagl is also survived by another son, Kurt; two sisters; 11 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
She donated her body to research. A memorial service is being planned.
