Emily Martinez looks up “dive bar” on Google whenever she’s out of town and wants to hang out at a cozy, local bar. When she decided to open her own place in downtown Elgin, the name just seemed to fit.
The Dive Bar at 109 E. Highland Ave. should be open sometime in November, Martinez said. It’s going into the location formerly occupied by Rogue’s Corner.
This week, the Elgin Liquor Commission unanimously signed off on a liquor license for the business. The request heads to the Elgin City Council for final approval on Oct. 23.
“Welcome to downtown,” City Councilman Corey Dixon said at the commission meeting Wednesday. “I think the vibe and vibrancy over the last few years has really kicked up downtown, so I think it’s a great time to invest. I wish you all well.”
The Dive Bar will be open until 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
She has been looking for the right location for her business for two years, Martinez said. She considered spots in other towns but she decided she wanted to be in Elgin, her hometown, wher she currently owns a Farmers Insurance office on the city’s west side.
“I wanted to be here. I grew up here. I raised my boys here. This is home,” Martinez said.
Elgin needs more places to enjoy a drink, watch a game or meet up with friends, she said. The younger generations are not as much into clubs as other generations have been, she said, and she wants to create a place where they can socialize.
“We see a lot of these young people in these dive bars,” Martinez said. “Everybody loves a dive bar.”
The business is going into a location that’s ready to go. Because the former Rogue’s Corner had been extensively remodeled — it was a steampunk-themed pizza restaurant that closed in January 2023 — the space needed very little work, she said.
“We don’t need to do anything,” Martinez said.
She is leasing the space from Cuming Holdings, which owns several properties downtown. There have been a lot of businesses coming and going recently, Cuming property manager Alicia Burns said.
“Some of them make it, some of them don’t,” Burns said. “It really depends on how well the business gets managed.”
Rogue’s Corner, owned by Matt Habib and Jennifer Polit, closed suddenly in January 2023 after its chef underwent cancer surgery and Habib was struggling with injuries from a car crash. They had operated the Red Poppy Bistro in the same location until closing in 2022.
The couple’s first restaurant venture in downtown Elgin, Legit Dogs & Ice on South Grove Avenue, closed in 2019. And this week so did their resurrected Red Poppy Bistro, which opened on Randall Road in South Elgin in the spring.
No information about the departure was available other than a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page that read, “Sorry, we’re closed forever. In the end, we all get what we deserve. Cya.”
Burns had no comment on either of the business’ unexpected closures.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
