Tini Bar, a 630-square-foot speakeasy planned beneath River North’s LIA Tavern, expects to open by the end of November with space for 30 people. The bar will offer first-come, first-served seating and a cocktail list drawing on drinks popular in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, alongside a signature martini dispensed from a ceiling-hung tube.
Chef Justin Vaiciunas, who owns Tini Bar and LIA Tavern, said he saw an opportunity to accommodate more guests after the restaurant became successful, according to Block Club Chicago. LIA often has many walk-ins and heavily booked reservations, Vaiciunas said. That pressure intensified after the restaurant went viral in April for a $30 Amalfi Coast Girl Dinner special: reservations were fully booked for four months, and staff turned away 40 to 50 walk-in diners a day, according to Medill Reports Chicago.
The bar’s design pairs midcentury modern references with a more theatrical setup: guests pass through a small red-painted room with a disco ball to reach a T-shaped, red-tiled bar beneath an 11-foot ambient red light. Chrome cocktail tables, chartreuse drapery, lime-washed walls and burgundy-and-steel shelving complete the 30-seat space.
A Martini Served From the Ceiling
The showpiece of the cocktail list is the Warhol Martini, a house-crafted LIA martini reimagined as a performance piece. It's batched and kept below freezing, continuously stirred by a hidden magnetic spinner, and dispensed through a metal tube hanging from the ceiling; guests press a button to release an icy stream into their glass.
The specialty cocktail menu will feature 15 to 20 drinks, separate from the beer and wine offerings. Vaiciunas said the program reflects both what people drank and what was being promoted in the period. Among the drinks: a Mad Men-style old-fashioned served in a clear, chrome-rimmed rocks glass with a fake cigarette that emits smoke-like vapor when blown; a Midori-sake-lychee sour made with junmai sake, citrus and lychee; and a matcha piña colada. A six-drink cocktail tasting menu will also be available.
Mini Food to Match Mini Drinks
The small-plate menu will include tini weenies, savory mini cones, pickle dip and miniature prime rib sandwiches. The format follows Vaiciunas’s recent work upstairs: in January, he launched Mona LIA, a $60 seven-course tasting menu featuring miniature tavern-style pizzas paired with drinks, according to WGN-TV.
Guests will be able to borrow vintage digital cameras and download their photos to their phones. The space will also be available for private event buyouts. Hours are expected to largely mirror LIA Tavern’s, with the possibility of staying open an additional hour on weekends.
Behind the Retro Cocktail Boom
The mini-cocktail concept taps into a broader shift in how Americans are drinking. A 2025 survey by NC Solutions found that 49% of American adults planned to cut back on alcohol consumption, a figure that climbed to nearly two-thirds among Gen Z adults ages 18 to 28, as reported by Wine Enthusiast. Mini martinis poured in 1- to 2-ounce portions have gained traction at major U.S. and European cocktail bars between 2024 and 2026, a trend tied partly to keeping drinks intensely cold and partly to that same moderation push, per VinePair.
What Small Cocktails Can—and Can’t—Tell You
A small serving is not necessarily a lower-alcohol drink. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism explains that beverage size alone does not determine alcohol content; the amount of pure alcohol matters. Without documented pour sizes and recipes, a cocktail’s serving size alone cannot establish its alcohol content. Separately, Gallup found that the share of young adults who said they drink fell from 59% in 2023 to 50% in its latest poll, according to Gallup.
Small-format martinis have also appeared on menus elsewhere: Atlanta’s Talat Market added a $7, two-ounce Mini-Tini to its regular and happy-hour menus, according to SevenFifty Daily.
Vaiciunas and co-owner Michael Mauro run their restaurants under Canvas Hospitality, the group behind The Jackson, an art-inspired restaurant the pair opened in Rochester Hills, Michigan, in June 2024 before expanding to Chicago with LIA Tavern in June 2025, according to the Detroit Metro Times. Mauro, the group's sommelier, holds certifications from the Court of Master Sommeliers, the Wine & Spirit Education Trust and the Sake Service Institute of Japan. Vaiciunas was named Metro Detroit's Best Chef in 2015 and had led restaurant openings in Miami, Palm Beach, the Hamptons, San Diego and Dallas before founding Canvas Hospitality.
The building itself has a long dining history. Constructed in 1902 and renovated in 1987, the four-story, 19,200-square-foot structure at 11 W. Illinois St. previously housed the Central European restaurant Bohemian House, known as BoHo, and later the tropical-themed Flora Fauna, according to Forking Chicago. LIA's interior, like Tini Bar's midcentury-inspired space below it, was designed by Pophouse, a Detroit-based commercial interior design firm owned by Jennifer Gilbert.
