The Hideout gets a new owner, testing the future of a Chicago institution

By Mark Guarino

March 19, 2026 06:00 AM CDT

The Hideout, the beloved Chicago music club that often doubled as a public forum for politics and social justice, was sold to a former intern who has direct family ties to the oldest and largest futures brokerage firm in the United States.

Teri O’Brien, 40, assumed control of the club yesterday. The terms were not disclosed. The Hideout’s 26 employees were notified of the new ownership before doors opened that night.

Tim and Katie Tuten, and brothers Mike and Jim Hinchsliff, purchased The Hideout in October 1996. For the past 30 years the small bar, located inside the Elston Avenue industrial corridor between Bucktown and Lincoln Park, has served as a clubhouse for nearly every significant Chicago musical artist of the last 30 years, including Wilco, Billy Corgan, Jon Langford, Neko Case, Andrew Bird, Robbie Fulks, Josh Caterer, Finom, Steve Albini, Kelly Hogan, as well as veteran luminaries such as Mavis Staples, Honeyboy Edwards, Oscar Brown Jr. and many others.

“The Hideout has always felt like a continuation of the friendly, diehard music community we had back at Lounge Ax,” the Lincoln Park rock club that closed in 2000, said Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. “We’re lucky to have so many great venues in Chicago and each has its good points, but The Hideout has always felt most like home. They treat their customers and bands like family.”

Andrew Bird said The Hideout was critical to his development as an artist in the late 1990s and beyond. Part of it was due to the Tutens’ enthusiasm for the artists: “A lot of musicians can be introverted and not exactly boosters of their own work. . . .So you need someone like that to pull people together.” He said the owners gave him free license to shoot videos on its stages and even lent him the upstairs office to live in temporarily. “I was ambitious, but Chicago at that time was proudly nonprofessional. And everybody was there for the right reasons,” he said. “It was just our place. There was healthy lack of professionalism about the whole thing.”

Meet Teri O’Brien

The Tutens met O’Brien through family friends. The club was never publicly listed for sale. According to O’Brien, the Tutens asked her in February 2025 if she wanted to buy the club after she expressed interest years earlier. O’Brien, who has lived in Nashville for the last 10 years to pursue a music career, said she will remain in Nashville with her husband, an accountant, while splitting her time in Chicago. O’Brien calls herself “still a work in progress” who has never managed a bar, but said she will hire a consultant to teach her the business.

O’Brien grew up in Glencoe, attended New Trier High School and later studied classical violin at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She ended up interning with The Hideout’s talent buyer and after that, worked the bar’s door for nearly three years until moving to Nashville in 2018. Her website describes her self-funded musical project Brontë Fall as having a “mixed Americana/alt-pop sound.” She said The Hideout opportunity comes at a time when she wants to make music a part-time pursuit.

O’Brien said she is treating the purchase “more as a family investment” but she will be solely in charge of the bar. “It’s my show,” she said. Her late father John was CEO of R.J. O’Brien & Associates, the oldest futures brokerage in the United States dating back to 1914 by her great-grandfather. It is the last surviving founding member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Last August the firm was acquired by StoneX Group, a New York-based financial services provider in a cash and stock deal worth $900 million.

O’Brien said her father would approve of her latest venture. “My dad had such a love of community and the arts. He always thought music was a hobby and I should go into business and now I’m going into business, and he’d be really happy,” she said.

‘A good family investment’

The timing of the sale coincides with the coming transformation of the land surrounding The Hideout. The club faced an existential crisis in 2016 when developer Sterling Bay announced mega-development Lincoln Yards. The controversial project caused an uproar among advocates for the club who said it would snuff out the creative community fostered there for decades. As reported by Crain’s in December, general contractor Novak Construction has a contract to buy more than 18 acres of land surrounding The Hideout from Sterling Bay and J.P. Morgan Asset Management. More than 3,700 residences are proposed.

In February the City Council approved plans to build Foundry Park, a scaled-back version of Lincoln Yards, on the northern end of the former Sterling Bay property, from developers JDL Development and Kayne Anderson Real Estate. That development will feature nearly 4,000 residences, 350,000 square feet of office space and 420,000 square feet of retail and commercial space. Construction may begin this fall.

O’Brien said she is excited by the incoming development and said she met last summer with Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, who supports the projects, to learn details.

“What’s cool is they are turning it into a community with apartments no higher than three floors. They are turning it into a neighborhood, which is wonderful because The Hideout will be the neighborhood bar. It’s very low risk for my family because it’s just very valuable. It’s a good family investment,” she said.

‘Carrying on the legacy’

The Tutens said they decided about a year and a half ago to sell both the business and building as all four owners have turned 65 and it felt appropriate to leave for the club’s 30th anniversary year. “It seemed like the right time all the way around. It’s a young person’s business, really,” said Katie Tuten.

O’Brien said she plans to keep the existing staff “and carry on the legacy” of the previous owners. She said she may introduce cocktails named after musicians like David Bowie or Johnny Cash and establishing “Broads and Songs,” a showcase of female songwriters she hosts in Nashville. She also plans to play a more prominent role in booking the talent. “I love bringing creatives together. It would be so much fun to help with that,” she said. She added that her brothers Tim and John O’Brien, principals with the Chicago-based O’Brien Investments Group, “won’t have positions on the payroll but they will have interest in the booking and music,” she said.

Besides music, The Hideout made a name for itself as serving as a forum for state and city lawmakers who often used the club’s stage as a grassroots platform to express policy ideas in a relaxed and lively setting. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said The Hideout represents “a critical part of our democracy” for how it serves as “a community space” for political debate.

“It’s the people’s place. It’s not just a bar to hear great, interesting music. That’s a result of the way that Tim and Katie have carefully cultivated and nurtured the environment at The Hideout,” she said. “The thing that causes me trepidation about this news is what the future holds. It’s their baby they are passing off to somebody else. I hope the new owner knows the importance of keeping the venue as it is.”

O’Brien said she is “not as politically active as Tim and Katie.” However, she added that she felt it would be “cool” if political events continue at the club.