Once Illegal, the Speakeasy Now Flourishes Across the Country in a Spirited Revival

A century ago today, the country was supposed to permanently become a nation of teetotalers as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect and banned the sale, manufacturing and distribution of alcohol.

It obviously didn’t work. Prohibition spawned a slew of bars around the country called speakeasies that sold illicit booze and inspired trendy, chic, legal variations a century later that launched popular craft classic cocktails. So that growing popularity makes it more likely that retail real estate investors or lenders may end up being involved with a speakeasy deal in coming years.

After all, in the current era of everything experiential, modern speakeasies can be appealing because they give a dose of secrecy and exclusivity similar to Prohibition establishments, all mixed with period cocktails served to patrons surrounded by 1920s decor. They just don’t have the fear of police busting up the place.

The modern revival’s roots started two decades ago as an alternative to the loud bar and nightclub scene. But their growth has surged in recent years as more people favor a quieter atmosphere in which they put down their mobile phones and socialize while having a drink.

“They are definitely increasing in popularity,” said Jessica Taylor, a longtime bartender and consultant in Indianapolis and board member for the U.S. Bartenders Guild. The places make patrons “feel like the insider and special,” Taylor said. “It’s not like your average chain bar.”

She said a rough estimate is that more than 200 speakeasies are open in the United States. “Every major city has at least one, some with many,” she said.

Those numbers are far lower than the tens of thousands of speakeasies that cropped up during Prohibition, in some cities exceeding the number of legal bars before Prohibition. Taylor said the challenge now is "how to duplicate them without losing authenticity," even compared to those that opened two decades ago.

“As a society, we’ve decided that certain things equal speakeasy,” she said. She said merely checking boxes and calling a bar a speakeasy ends up making a place feel formulaic.

Modern Speakeasies

Hidden entrances, whispered passwords, special knocks or dialing a phone to enter are all part of the allure that draws patrons into a space that gives the feel of a Prohibition speakeasy: mahogany bars, period furniture, dim lighting.

Unlike during Prohibition, today’s speakeasy is essentially an open secret. Passwords and special phone numbers are easily obtained through social media or other easy means. Locations can be found online and some places even put speakeasy in the name. Typically, there's a dress code such as collared shirts or a jacket for men.

There are some differences between speakeasies of yore and today. House rules may also require to take calls outside, which wasn't an issue during Prohibition.

Sipping from vintage glassware, patrons imbibe in cocktails created during Prohibition such as an old fashioned, a sidecar, a bee’s knees or a highball. But those cocktails are more sophisticated than they were during Prohibition. Under Prohibition, cocktails were made with various ingredients to help hide the alcohol’s low quality or hide a speakeasy owner’s efforts to make more money by thinning the booze.

Now, they are fancy artistic endeavors that carry a hefty price tag over the standard vodka tonic, topping $20 for a drink in some places.

Bartenders aren’t bartenders as much as they are “mixologists” who create their own syrups, bitters and tinctures used in making the cocktails. Several industry associations, including the Bartenders Guild, give accreditation to bartenders for learning mixology.

Prohibition Begins

Congress passed the 18th Amendment in 1917 after nearly a century of pressure from temperance movements around the country. A variety of states had already passed bans on alcohol in some form before the amendment arrived. An enforcement mechanism was needed first, and the Volstead Act passed in 1919. With that law in place, the 18th Amendment was ratified by the necessary states on Jan. 16, 1919, and took effect a year and a day later on Jan. 17, 1920.

Bars shut down or switched to becoming speakeasies. The name supposedly came from the practice of “speak easy” to whisper the password to get into a bar.

Few original speakeasies exist today. They are mostly revivals of former speakeasy locations or new ones.

The 21 Club in New York City is one of the oldest and most iconic speakeasies in the country. It landed at its current location in 1930 after moving three times under different names since its original opening in 1922. Elements of its past remain today.

Owl Bar at The Belvedere hotel in Baltimore preceded Prohibition. It wasn’t named Owl Bar at the time. The spot was simply the back bar when the hotel was built in 1903.

When Prohibition came, the bar continued to sell alcohol surreptitiously. The hotel created a signaling system with two owl statues that would let patrons know when the bar had alcohol to serve and it was safe to enter.

The hotel traded hands many times, sometimes through foreclosure or bankruptcy. Sheraton Hotels operated the hotel from 1946 to 1968. It ceased being a hotel for several years before a new owner, Victor Frenkil, bought it in 1976 with plans to revive the historic hotel.

Frenkil named the back bar Owl Bar. He lost the hotel in bankruptcy court in 1990. The hotel was converted to condominiums the next year but the Owl Bar remained along with the owl statues.

Hotels often served as locations for the secret bars during Prohibition. Eight years ago, the Omni William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh revived a former speakeasy space under stairs on the lower level and named it The Speakeasy.

“It was boarded up for 50 years,” said Bob Page, director of sales and marketing for the hotel.

As part of an overall hotel renovation, Omni decided to restore the space that had been used for storage for all those years to give an alternative bar within the hotel. It seats only 45 people.

Some of the original elements remained, such as the mahogany bar and terra cotta floor. Page said it was like going into a Wild West saloon. The bar was chipped as was the floor and needed replacing. So the hotel reimagined the space with a 1920s theme. Plush scarlet color seating in dim lighting. It replicated the tin ceiling and flocked wallpaper that had been in the original speakeasy.

Page said the most interesting part is the clientele. “Women seem to like the room more” because it is hidden away and women don’t feel like they are on display and can have a quiet place, he said.

Hidden Away

During Prohibition, speakeasies fashioned all sorts of ingenious ways for patrons to enter and escape if the law showed up. At the Gaslight Club in Washington, D.C., which is now an office building, patrons went to the third floor, entered the men’s room and turned a faucet that opened a panel to the speakeasy.

Some of that still exists today in modern speakeasies. There are back alley entrances and bookcases that slide open.

At Red Phone Booth in Atlanta and Nashville, Tennessee, patrons walk into an old British phone booth that has a restored 1930s rotary phone where the earpiece is separate from the receiver. They dial the code and enter.

While the locations are open to the public, patrons have to know a member or someone who knows the code to enter.

The rotary phone sometimes confuses people who have never used one and have to be instructed how to use it, said Stephen De Haan, who co-owns the Red Phone Booths and opened his first speakeasy named Prohibition in downtown Atlanta in 2009.

Still, he said, “I honestly believe the phone booth is transformative.”

Once the patron enters after dialing the number, it takes them into a space allows them to put down their phones to have a cocktail and nice conversation in space that takes them back in time, he said.

He said he “rarely hears a phone ring in the places.”

De Haan, whose grandfather was a pharmacist during Prohibition doling out medicinal alcohol, originally expected that the crowd for his bars would be 40 to 60 years old and mostly male. But he said he was “surprised how it really spanned the generations and gender.”

Modern Beginnings

As with many trends, the comeback of the speakeasy got kick started in New York City, but which spot opened first is a matter of debate. The Bartender Guild’s Taylor said Angel’s Share opening in the East Village in 1993 is considered one of the leaders.

It didn’t open as a speakeasy but the small bar has all of the trappings of one with the interior design and cocktails. But it emerged “really just out of necessity.” Since it is in a neighborhood, the bar doesn't advertise itself as a bar. There's no sign. You walk through an unmarked door next to a Japanese restaurant.

Milk & Honey has also been credited with setting the foundation for the speakeasy trend. The late owner Sasha Petraske, who is given much of the credit for reviving the classic cocktails in the United States, opened the bar in a Lower East Side neighborhood. It, too, had no sign. The bar also required reservations for the 20 seats.

Milk & Honey moved to a larger space with a sign in the city’s Flatiron district in 2013. But it closed in 2014 when the landlord decided to redevelop the property and has not reopened elsewhere.

The bars "grew organically” without the thought of generating huge profits and just happened to end up being branded as speakeasies, Taylor said. “Now it’s a formula.”