Home Bar, From Owners Of West Town’s Happy Hour Shop, To Open This Month

WEST TOWN — When Home Bar, a new concept from the owners of West Town’s Happy Hour Shop, opens this summer, cocktails will be priced at $12.

But if you happen to be a cat, you qualify for a sharp discount.

“Cats drink for free,” Jess Feller, who is launching the bar at 2010 W. Fulton St. just south of West Town with her husband, John, told Block Club.

“If you came over to John’s and my apartment, you would be getting served everything that you’re getting served here, and so, your cat has to get a cocktail,” she said, laughing but also completely serious.

Feller is referencing a nightly ritual where she and her husband make a cocktail of salmon paste and water for their three-legged cat Mr. Biscuits, who has almost 50,000 Instagram followers and somewhat regularly goes viral.

It’s a tradition that speaks to their intense love of cocktails and bar culture, not to mention cats — and it represents the level of enthusiasm the couple is bringing to their new bar on Fulton Street near Damen Avenue. In many ways, Home Bar is a culmination of their past decade working on various ventures within the cocktail industry.

In 2016, the Fellers started making alcohol infusion kits that grew into a full-fledged company called Aged & Infused. The fruit-based kits, which customers can mix with various liquors, started really taking off during the pandemic, when cocktail lovers had to drink at home.

Then in 2024, the couple launched The Happy Hour Shop at 1919 W. Chicago Ave. in West Town. The storefront is a repository for vintage bar glassware, decor and other items and gifts. They also host regular cocktail-making classes in the space.

The Fellers expanded their operations last year into the 2010 W. Fulton St. space, formerly home to Rhine Hall Distillery, to use as their manufacturing and online staging headquarters. They knew they also wanted to open a bar there and have since been at work undertaking renovations.

The result is a sleek, warehouse-meets-Scandinavian interior that will have rotating cocktails made from the Fellers’ home recipes, plus a few beers and wines. A retail section is stocked with cocktail supplies as well as vintage items sourced via the Happy Hour Shop.

“When you come in, if there’s a recipe that you love, we will write the recipe down for you, and you can buy everything to make that recipe,” Jess Feller said. “So, there’s a big retail component to it. We’re a place where you can come and not completely break the bank, but still have excellent quality cocktails.”

Home Bar’s menu will feature eight cocktails, with recipes rotating frequently. That will include a special martini focus, with examples of John and Jess Feller’s preferred styles available — dry and dirty, respectively.

The couple will be serving a classic Old Fashioned as well as one made with rum infused with the Aged & Infused mango hibiscus kit. There will also be a take on a strawberry daiquiri, an ode to Jess Feller’s mom’s favorite drink.

“Each [cocktail] holds a specific memory for us,” Jess Feller said.

Home Bar will start with only two beers: Old Style and the Free Bird American Pale Ale from Begyle Brewing, the North Center brewery where Jess Feller used to work. They’ll also have a limited wine menu, but cocktails will remain the central focus.

That’s already on display with the bar’s special martini membership club, appropriately called “Club ‘Tini.”

For $100, customers will get one martini each month for a year, plus a special “martini consultation” where the Fellers will learn about participants’ individual tastes and preferences.

“We’ll learn what you like and how you prefer your martini, and we’re going have a book behind the bar where we’re going to write down your martini recipes,” John Feller said.

As Home Bar launches later this month — with an exact date to be determined — the Fellers will continue to operate Aged & Infused and Happy Hour Shop, where they will still host their cocktail classes.

But Home Bar will take up a significant amount of their time and energy; the couple themselves will be the mixing drinks, at least at first.

“We just learned over this whole business experience that we’re not warehouse junkies,” John Feller said. “We love ground level, serving you drinks, and being with our customers in person, versus the online kind of game.”

“We belong in hospitality,” Jess Feller added.

Initial hours at Home Bar, 2010 W. Fulton St., will be 4-9 p.m. Thursday and Friday and noon-9 p.m. Saturdays, and the Fellers plan to eventually add service on Wednesday and Sunday.