“Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,” Joni Mitchell sang back in the 60s.
So, it is with the legendary McGaffer’s Saloon at 7737 W. Roosevelt Road. The iconic bar has been shuttered in the wake of an unfortunate freak accident on Oct. 25 that badly injured owner J.P. Malone.
According to eyewitnesses and others, Malone’s injuries were indeed accidental. Two cousins, regulars at the saloon, were arguing, and when one pushed the other, he fell back into Malone, who fell and struck his head on the hard patio area surface.
Joe Byrnes, a retired Forest Park deputy police chief who’s known Malone for more than 50 years, confirmed that, saying, “Two guys were arguing [not fighting], and one pushed the other,” he said. “The guy bumped into Pat, and he fell down and hit his head.”
The incident was documented in brief police shorthand in a report.
“Elderly M(ale) subj(ect) was knocked over req(uired) amb(ulance),” it stated. “Officers observed blood coming from Malone’s nose,” and that he was “breathing, non-responsive.”
“I thought he was dead,” said another friend who was there when it happened. Malone was rushed to Rush Oak Park Hospital and spent weeks recovering from a serious head injury.
There has been some confusion about the exact circumstances of Malone’s injuries, due to another more violent and disruptive, but separate incident around the same time that same evening involving two belligerent individuals who refused to leave.
A Nov. 3 Facebook post announced that McGaffer’s was “going to be closed temporarily for repairs and potential remodeling. We hope to reopen in the near future …”
More than three months later, however, the blinds remain drawn behind the large picture window, the vertical window in the door is papered over and there are no work permits posted.
Malone is doing well now, but his family doesn’t want him to run McGaffer’s anymore, and the building and attached property parcels have been put up for sale.
There will be no renovations, and McGaffer’s will not reopen, said long-time friend Dennis Marani, who is helping Malone with the details of selling.
“It’s on the market,” he said.
Back in 1914, when the building was constructed, thousands of Chicago residents routinely made their way west on Roosevelt Road en route to the dozens of cemeteries west of Des Plaines Avenue going all the way to DuPage County. Many stopped at the saloon on Roosevelt just east of Des Plaines for a beer or two afterwards.
People also came to Forest Park for recreation, including the Forest Park Amusement Park to the north at what’s now the Eisenhower Expressway, the Harlem Race Track and the first public golf course in the metropolitan area on the south side of Roosevelt, where the Forest Park Mall is now.
But for all its rich history, the saloon’s true heyday, its golden era, has been the past 48-plus years that Malone ran it since purchasing the building in 1976. He holds the longest active liquor license in Forest Park.
In May, for the first time in 48 years, Malone will not renew the liquor license.
McGaffer’s wasn’t a bar or a “lounge or a tavern, it was a saloon, a friendly place that welcomed everyone. A place to drink your fill, for sure, but also a gathering spot where everyone and anyone was welcome, so long as they respected other people and didn’t act up.
Byrnes is a lifelong Forest Park resident who, after retiring from the police force, served six years on the park board and eight years as a village commissioner. He recalled McGaffer’s as a place to go that attracted folks from many other neighborhoods. A joint where cemetery workers, postal workers, bakery truck drivers, iron workers and hospital employees all stopped by regularly at various times.
“People from all walks of life were at McGaffer’s,” Byrnes said. “It didn’t matter your color or religion (or whatever), you were welcome.”
Rich “Chubbs” Polfus tended bar at McGaffers a night or two each week for more than a decade. He’s held fundraisers like Christmas with a Cause at McGaffer’s and gone there with his softball teams.
He recalls the saloon being a place people could relax and be themselves. One of his favorite memories were all the Thanksgivings when Malone had at least one and, on one occasion, live turkeys, and all the trimmings, for customers to enjoy with their drinks.
“If you didn’t have a place to go, you came to McGaffer’s” Polfus said.
“I don’t know how to explain the place,” said Marani, who has known Malone for more than 40 years. “You walked in there and felt at home.”
McGaffer’s was, he said, “a pretty cool place, the last of the old-time saloons.”
“You’re not gonna have another place like that,” Byrnes said.
If McGaffer’s wasn’t just a bar, Malone wasn’t just a bar owner. He was, as the lettering states both on the large front picture window, and on the carved wooden sign that ran the width of the building above the entryway, “J.P. Malone, Proprietor.”
And for all his pride in his saloon, that was enough for Malone. When it came to the myriad events and causes that McGaffer’s played host to over the decades, people say, Malone was content to stand in the background (“with a cigar in his mouth”) and let others have the spotlight.
“He’s a stand-up guy who didn’t want any pats on the back,” said Byrne.
Some hope that the unfortunate events on an otherwise beautiful October evening last fall do not serve as the last hurrah for McGaffer’s.
Byrnes said any such event for Malone would require an entire weekend to accommodate all the people Malone has known.
“I would hope that, before the place shuts down for good, they’d have a weekend to honor Pat,” Byrnes said. “It would have to be a two-day thing for him, to have all the people he’s known be able to stop by and say thank you.”
Polfus wants not only to see one more event at McGaffer’s but also have the village name a section of a nearby street in his honor.
Will there be one last “cheers!” at McGaffer’s Saloon? One last “salute!” echoing off its walls from a happy crowd toasting the proud proprietor who oversaw it all for decades?
Marani, who’s in regular touch with Malone, said there are plans in motion, but nothing specific yet.
“We’re working on something,” he said, without going into details, adding “when it’s warmer.”