Lincoln Park venue-slash-bar Tonic Room is no more—technically. When the space reopens later this month, it’ll be called Golden Dagger, after an actual knife that a previous owner found inside the 127-year-old building’s walls. Though it will still be a venue once it’s safe and practical to host live music again, to start it’ll be a coffeehouse first and a bar second. Owner Donnie Biggins, who also sings and plays guitar in the Shams Band, says he’s wanted to transform the venue since he bought it in 2016, and he decided to make the best of the COVID shutdown and finally start renovations. He was inspired by a conversation with Chicago multi-instrumentalist Zango the Third (he remembers it happening around the time Zango released ReBrand ReCovery in July), and the final event at Tonic Room was Half Gringa’s livestream in November benefiting the CIVL SAVE Emergency Relief Fund. Biggins began building out Golden Dagger the next day.
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