The Cedar Hotel

WHEN TWO BECOME ONE If you’ve never dreamed of combining elements from disparate bars, you’ve never been wasted and starving at a dive bar, praying for some barely warm tamales to miraculously appear. To us, it makes perfect sense to mix the nightlife expertise of vets Mike Bisbee and Michael Kaulentis (the very busy guys behind RiNo, Manor and the recently opened spot Stay) and the bar-food mastery of Greg Mohr and Scott Weiner (The Fifty/50) into one venue. “I could never do what [Bisbee] does,” Mohr explains: “I could never open a club, and he’s never worked with food.” The partners combined the former Melvin B’s and Cactus spaces to create the outdoor patio and cedar-bedecked interior that characterize The Cedar Hotel. “Those places were institutions,” Mohr says of the Gold Coast stalwarts. “It’s the place where everyone went from work in suits or from the beach, and we don’t want to change that.” But a little remodeling? Well, that seems like necessary evolution. 1112 N State St (312-944-1112).

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