A swanky enclave with a punk rock edge, Villains serves classic martinis and microbrews with a laid-back attitude. It opened in June 2007, just a few blocks from the Chicago Stock Exchange.

Chicago Drinks: Can you tell us more about the amazing décor in the bar?

Marco Silva: We call this place Villains because we’re kind of off the beaten path. This building has been here for 125 years. At one time it housed a brothel, and there was a couple that had a dungeon upstairs in the 70s, so there’s a lot of little stories to it. Keeping that in mind, we picked a wallpaper [a baroque black and gold pattern from a company in London] that kind of reminded us of brothels in the late 1800s. To break that up we picked this textured wallpaper called acoustic weave from a company in Sweden that’s made of recycled cardboard. Then we bought 30 posters of that Warhol print [Elvis posing with a gun], had our wallpaper guy paste it to the base of the bar and sealed it with polyurethane.

What type of people come here?

Our market is mostly young professionals starting off and moving into the neighborhood [South Loop].

What about the music?

We have a DJ on Friday and Saturday, and four iPods. We’re kind of all over the place with music, but Bon Jovi will never be played in here. We even included that in our press release.

I once worked in a bar in Tokyo that played Bon Jovi all the time and it was pretty bad. So what about all the TVs on the walls? I heard a rumor that you guys sometimes play porn late at night…

We sometimes play the “Erotic home shopping network.” It’s a show that comes on at 1 a.m. where these two ladies come on and talk about vibrators, just like the regular Home Shopping Network! It’s crazy.

I know you guys do some interesting stuff with food like deep fried mac ‘n cheese and buffalo calamari. What about the drinks?

All the martinis are named after super villains. We have ten beers on tap, and another 12 or 13 microbrews. On Mondays all our martinis are $5.

Any special events?

[Burlesque performer] Michelle L’amour is here the last Wednesday of each month. She’s been performing here for eight months, and she’ll bring six or seven performers with her for the show.

What inspired you and your partners to open the bar?

I’ve lived in this neighborhood for ten years, and I hated that I had to leave the neighborhood to go to a bar, and I wanted to create a place where I could hang out and feel comfortable. And this has become that for us.

Villains, 649 S. Clark St., 312-356-9992 or villainschicago.com. 3 p.m.-2 a.m., Sunday through Friday, 5 p.m.-3 a.m. Saturday.

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