Whiskey, tequila and tacos. What else do you need?
Add some tasty appetizers, boozy desserts and rich Chicago-area lore and you’ve got 1910 Geneva, a historic bar with an urban vibe in downtown Geneva.
Owners Lindsey and Sergio De Los Santos also run Sergio’s Cantina, which is a traditional Mexican restaurant on the ground floor.
“Upstairs we wanted something really different, with modern fusion tacos and a whiskey bar,” she said.
After Sergio’s Cantina would close for the night, Lindsey De Los Santos said she’d see their customers walking out and wondered if there was a way they could keep them there. Opening a bar upstairs allowed them to do just that.
They had the idea six or seven years ago to eventually turn the place into a bar, and they scoped out locations in Chicago to see what different ideas they could adapt.
“We wanted more creative freedom, so we’d take the day off and eat at five different places,” she said.
Some of the more popular dishes include the brisket quesadilla, poke nachos and fish tacos. The menu offers 12 appetizers and two desserts. Taco varieties are brisket, chicken pipian, el macho, kojo short rib, Maui fish, pork belly, cochinita pibil, panella mushroom, esquites and camote al pastor.
“St. Charles has a lot of bars and nightlife, but there aren’t a lot of places here in Geneva,” Lindsey De Los Santos said. “We like to cater to an older crowd, say 30s to 60s. Hey, we like to go out and have fun, too!”
About the owners: The couple opened 1910 Geneva in 2018 after the apartments in the space above Sergio’s Cantina opened up. Neither of them are trained chefs; Sergio De Los Santos learned to cook from his mother. “We’d make food for our family for parties and we would hear from people over and over that we should open a restaurant,” Lindsey De Los Santos said.
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