CHICAGO -- The evening that Samuel Ornelas died, music from the old jukebox in his cantina stopped playing and the vintage bar stools stood empty. On Jan. 28, for the first time in nearly 50 years, El Trebol Liquors, the oldest dive bar in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, closed its doors to its faithful patrons to pay their respects to Sammy, as most people called him.
Sammy was 86, and had spent most of his time at the family business that he helped establish and that he became sole proprietor of in the last decade.
He was resilient, said his oldest son, Manuel Ornelas, much like the other immigrants who arrived in the city in the ‘60s and beyond. They’re the ones who started to build a life in the area and shaped the culture of the then Mexican immigrant neighborhood. Those same immigrants, many of whom Sammy called friends, found a home in El Trebol.
