Quenchers Saloon will close for good next Sunday, June 17, and one artifact of the decades it’s spent in the building at Western and Fullerton is already gone: the original 1991 Wesley Willis drawing of Quenchers. In the back of the live room, on the wall where the drawing was displayed, there’s now a strip of masking tape that says “Prints available now.”
At least until Quenchers shuts its doors, you have an easy way to buy a reproduction of Willis’s drawing—for $20 you can just order one over the bar with your beer or sandwich. I couldn’t resist (that drawing is my favorite thing about Quenchers), and last night I walked home with a two-foot-tall posterboard print, number 207 in an edition of 250.
As for the eight other Willis drawings that Quenchers owner Earle Johnson accumulated over the years, they’ll be part of a gallery show next month at Humboldt Park vintage shop An Orange Moon. Shop owners Lynne and Ty McDaniel will eventually sell them on Johnson’s behalf. That means the Quenchers garage sale June 21 through 23 won’t include any Wesley Willis originals—but Johnson will be selling all sorts of bar paraphernalia, some of which is probably old enough to be considered historical. And any piece of it could serve as your memento of the bar’s long-standing and vital role in the nightlife culture of Bucktown and Logan Square.
