One snowy afternoon in January 2002, shortly after earning a master’s degree in public policy at the University of Chicago, Tarek Mahmassani was doing a few loads of laundry in the Lakeview apartment into which he had recently moved. The cable was out and he was bored.
“I just started thinking about all the bars I had been to here and started writing a list,” he says. “I called friends to see what bars they remembered us visiting and I came up with a number.”
That number was 65, an impressive figure by most drinking standards.
“I thought it might be fun if I could get to 100,” he says.
One year later he did, celebrating with about 45 friends at Spoon, 1240 N. Wells St. “So many people I knew were intrigued by this idea,” he says.
He felt empowered. And the bars kept coming.
The 400th was District, 170 W. Ontario St.
“I rate the places on a 1 to 10 scale, based on a lot of factors such as service, decor, quality of drinks, diversity of crowd,” he says. “I learn about new places in magazines, Web sites and hear about them from friends. There is just such a wonderful variety here … Neighborhood taverns, bars, bars with food, lounges, clubs. Very few are rated as 1s and very few rated as 10s.”
Born in Lebanon, Mahmassani was raised and attended college in Kansas before moving to Hyde Park to attend the U. of C. He says that he was always a sociable and curious sort and is affable and articulate too.
There he is in Osgood’s photo, sitting with his friend, Shirin Hormozi, at Old Town Social, at 455 W. North Ave. That was bar No. 421, and when we talked to him a few weeks later he was already up to No. 427.
He expects to hit No. 500 in 2011. If this number alarms you, some quick calculations will allay your fears: it works out to less than one a week.
“I think my parents might have initially thought this list was a cause for concern,” says the 32-year-old, who works as a senior analyst in the Loop outpost of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the audit, evaluation and investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. “But I have a job, I go to the gym. This is just one aspect of my social life.”
But it is a great one — one that compels Mahmassani to visit new neighborhoods, meet new people.
His drink of choice is gin and tonic, though he will indulge in the occasional orange-flavored vodka and tonic and rave about the beer selections at the Map Room, 1949 N. Hoyne Ave., and Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark St.
He is sincere when he says, “This is a journey of the spirit, a vacation of the mind. New drinks, new people, new environments, new ideas.”
He is doing this simply for the considerable and enriching pleasures of doing it. He has no Web site chronicling his journey. No blog. He does not plan to write a book.
“Many of the places I visited have undoubtedly closed and I am not sure I have what it takes to write a guide book,” he says. “This is personal. It has taught me a great deal about Chicago and taught me that you don’t have to go away to have adventures.”
rkogan@tribune.com
