If live music was your thing, Mabel’s was your place in the glorious decade that was the 1980s.
Take it from bar regular Mike Bertrand, now president and CEO of Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois.
“Campustown had a great music scene in the mid-’80s,” says Bertrand, who earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the UI in 1987. “You could find both great local talent as well as nationally known acts almost any night of the week.
“The temple of live music was Mabel’s on Green Street. My last semester, the spring of 1987, was largely spent having a beer or two at Murphy’s, then walking across the street to Mabel’s and catching whomever was playing.”
