Nick's Tavern

The house

Nick Pappas opened this room in 1945. The Nick Burger is the reason neighboring towns still detour. The haunt is the town around it. Lemont is a limestone quarry village on the I&M Canal; Ghostly Voices has worked the Historical Society here, and the Society still runs a haunted pub crawl through the oldest taverns and landmarks on Main. Village Hall, a few doors away at 418 Main, is where late staff hear a crowd in an empty hallway. Sag Bridge and St. James sit on the edge of town with a cemetery older than the state. Nick’s itself is the living table in that map: Cubs on the wall, an antique register, Schlitz in the case. Come for the burger. The limestone does the rest.

The Nick Burger. Do not get clever. This is Lemont’s house plate. If you want the rest of the story, walk Main after you pay — Village Hall, the canal, the hill at Sag.

The Ghostly Gourmet