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In 1925, a Siberian immigrant named Anatol Josepho unveiled a coin-operated machine on Broadway in Manhattan that charged 25 cents for a strip of eight photos. People lined up around the block for hours. The photo booth had arrived, and America had been waiting for it.
A century later, Chicago is making the strongest argument for why it still matters.
How Chicago Became a Photo Booth City
Chicago has one of the densest photo booth ecosystems in the United States. Walk into the right bar on Milwaukee Avenue, duck into a music venue in Logan Square, or wander through a hotel lobby on Michigan Avenue, and you'll find a booth somewhere on the premises. More than 60 machines are scattered across the city's neighborhoods, and the majority of them were built and placed by the same Chicago-based operators, Anthony and Andrea Vizzari of A&A Studios.
That density isn't accidental. Chicago's neighborhood bar culture, its deep independent music scene, and a genuine DIY ethos have made photo booths a fixture here in a way that didn't take root the same way in other cities. Locals treat a photo strip the way other cities treat a drink ticket: as proof that a night happened.
The Rainbo Club, a dive bar on North Damen that dates to the 1930s, is the clearest illustration of what that means. Its black-and-white booth has been running for decades. Liz Phair used it to shoot the cover of Exile in Guyville in 1993, and that strip of photos became part of Wicker Park's cultural identity. Chicagoans who've never set foot in the Rainbo know the story. Visitors who find their way there tend to understand, immediately, why.
The Strip Club Photobooth Studio is the next chapter in that story, and the only place in Chicago built entirely around it.
Eleven Booths, One Purpose
Opened in February 2026 at 1702 N. Damen Ave. in Wicker Park, The Strip Club is Chicago's first dedicated photo booth studio — the only place in the city where the booth is the destination rather than a corner fixture in someone else's bar.
The 2,000-square-foot space holds 11 booths, each with its own format, personality, and visual character. Five are true vintage analog machines. Six are vintage-inspired digital. One prints a single image framed by a heart-shaped border. Another produces three strips at once, ready to divide among friends. Each session costs $7 and runs about three minutes.
The star of the lineup is Lady, an Autophoto Model 9 built in 1946 and the oldest working public photo booth in America. Visitors who know to ask for her tend to come back specifically for her. The image she produces — deep contrast, rounded corners, the particular grain of a machine that has been running for nearly 80 years — is unlike anything a modern booth can replicate.
None of the 11 booths have screens. There is no preview, no countdown, no moment to adjust your expression. The camera fires when it fires. What comes out tends to be more alive than anything you would plan.
No Bar Tab Required
The Strip Club is all-ages and pet-friendly, which makes it genuinely accessible in a way that most of Chicago's photo booth locations are not. The majority of the city's booths live inside bars. Getting to them requires a cover charge, a drink minimum, or simply being 21. The Strip Club requires none of those things.
It works for visitors with out-of-town guests, for families with kids who want something tactile and memorable, for groups of friends looking for an activity that doesn't require a reservation, and for anyone who has ever come home from a trip and wished they had something better to show for it than a camera roll.
On opening day, The Strip Club had a line around the block before the doors opened. Weekend afternoons still draw a wait. Come before noon to walk in without one.
What to Do With a Few Hours in Wicker Park
The Strip Club sits on one of Wicker Park's most walkable stretches of North Damen, less than five minutes on foot from the Blue Line's Damen stop. The surrounding blocks are dense with independent shops and restaurants, making it a natural anchor for a few hours in the neighborhood.
Visitors who come for one strip often stay for three. Each booth produces something different enough that working through a few of them in a single visit makes sense. Groups tend to split up, try different booths, compare strips, and go back for a favorite.
What you carry out doesn't need explaining. A photo strip tucks into a wallet, gets taped above a desk, or goes on a refrigerator where it stays for years. It is a specific, physical record of a specific moment in a city that takes those moments seriously.
That's the souvenir Chicago has been making for a hundred years. The Strip Club is just the first place built entirely around giving it to you. Unlike Malört, you'll actually want to come back for more.
The Strip Club Photobooth Studio
1702 N. Damen Ave., Wicker Park
Chicago $7 per turn | All ages and pets welcome
CTA Blue Line: Damen stop, less than five minutes on foot
