This story was published as part of Windy City Times’ 2025 cohort of its Our Stories, Our Power community journalism course.
By Jinny Kim — As dusk settles in, people buzz through the door of Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar in Bridgeport. Many are already out on the patio, enjoying the famous Maria’s Standard—polish sausage with kimchi and sauerkraut.
The music pulses throughout the bar, and the eponymous Maria smiles and checks patrons’ IDs at the front.
Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar at 960 W 31st St. is not just any old bar.
“I feel at home there, you know, it’s my third space as an adult,” said Jurgen Stevens, a long-time Bridgeport resident and Maria’s regular. “Maria’s a sweetheart, that’s for sure. That’s the queen of Bridgeport.”
Behind Maria’s is a compelling story about a trailblazing businesswoman who immigrated from South Korea and built an institution amid a neighborhood that was rapidly transforming.
Roots and resilience
Marszewski was born in Busan, South Korea in 1937, and was working as a beautician and volunteering at the church when she met an American soldier from Chicago, according to the Women’s L Project.
Their romance continued until after the Korean War when the soldier, James Marszewski, returned to Busan, where the two married. They then settled in Chicago, and Maria Marszewski diligently saved to open a beauty shop in the basement of her Mount Greenwood home.
After James Marszewski died at a young age, Maria Marszewski found success in commercial and residential real estate. She also ran a bar in Little Village and a Korean restaurant in Chicago Ridge known as House of Kim.
Those ventures eventually led to Maria Marszewski buying Kaplan’s Liquor, an old-timey “slashie”—half bar, half liquor store—in Bridgeport, in 1986. Her sons, Ed and Mike, rebranded the bar as Maria’s in 2010, and expanded the bar to include a second bar and Kimski’s in 2016.
Maria Marszewski personifies the fable of the American Dream, her son Ed Marszewski said.
“My mother’s talked to thousands of people, especially women, to give them advice,” Ed Marszewski said. “How to start a business, how to buy property, how to deal with their life.”
But Bridgeport was not so welcoming to Maria when she first took over the bar, according to the Chicago Reader.
Maria’s’ growth and the evolution of Bridgeport
In the early years of Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar, Bridgeport was rapidly changing—and some longtime residents weren’t happy about it.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Bridgeport was seeing a growth of migrants from Asia and Latin America. Puerto Rican and Mexican immigrants were increasingly finding their home in the neighborhood. Chinese American developers heavily invested and sold real estate to Chinese immigrants, many of whom wanted to be close to Chinatown.
Bridgeport’s shifting demographics brought about both cultural transformation and rising tensions. Marszewski recalled experiencing hostility firsthand during this period.
“I remember leaving work, walking home, and a car pulled up next to me, and a couple of Italian guys were like, ‘Get the fuck out of our neighborhood,’ and pointed the gun at me,” Ed Marszewski said. “I’m like, what the fuck, I live down the block. That’s my bar, and I live right here and work here, and they just started laughing and drove off.”
Ed described a group of vigilantes at the corner of 31st and Halsted, closely monitoring who was coming in and out.
“In the early ‘90s was the attack on Lenard Clark in a park in Armour Square, and that kind of underscored the kind of neighborhood it was,” Ed Marszewski said.
On March 21, 1997, 13-year-old Lenard Clark from Bronzeville was beaten into a coma by three white teenagers in Bridgeport. The teens later bragged that they kept Black people out of the neighborhood, according to a report from the New York Times.
“They didn’t like outsiders, didn’t like people of color coming into their neighborhood,” Ed Marszewski said.
But Maria Marszewski did not tolerate hateful behaviour in her bar, says Ed Marszewski. She was toughened as an “immigrant coming to Chicago dealing with the racist, sexist, misogynist behavior of people in the 60s and 70s,” and would remove people from the bar if they got out of line.
“We [still] have a lot of liberty to kick people out and stop serving people if they’re being assholes to people,” Tyler He, a bartender at Maria’s, said. “I think a lot of people come here knowing that it’s a safer space for them.”
Stevens, a regular of ten years, grew up in Bridgeport in the ‘90s and watched 31st and Morgan—the intersection Maria’s sits at—transform over the years.
“Morgan was dangerous. People wouldn’t come over here because it was absolutely, you know, a really intense area to be in,” Stevens said.
But things are different now, and “Maria’s is definitely the pioneer of that intersection,” Stevens said.
As Maria’s grew, so did the number of businesses at its intersection. Bridgeport Coffeehouse opened in 2004, Zaytune Mediterranean Grill in 2009, Martinez Bar & Grill in 2015, Nonna Soluri’s Italian Deli in 2017, Withufusion and 3 Little Pigs in 2024.
At its core, Maria’s is still a neighborhood bar—but it’s now also a destination for people from all over the city.
Patron-turned-bartender Tony Liu began frequenting Maria’s as a medical student working at the Bridgeport Free Clinic at 3001 S Lowe Ave.
“Seeing this Asian woman, like an old auntie, was really awesome to me,” Liu said. “I’m like, hell yeah, this is an Asian-owned bar, which I think was special.”
Liu brought coworkers and friends to the bar, eventually decided to move to the neighborhood, and even began working there as a bartender.
“Maria’s was always deeply tied to my sense and understanding of Bridgeport,” Liu said. “There’s no Bridgeport without Maria’s for myself.”
Maria’s Legacy: A third space for everyone
The bar is known for its events, such as open mic, comedy nights, karaoke and house DJ events. During the pandemic, its sister restaurant Kimski offered meals as free or pay-as-you-can.
Stevens described that with the events, more people started coming and the crowd has grown more diverse.
“[At Maria’s,] it’s just like, hey come on, let’s all hang out,” Stevens said. “Just really cool to hang out with people from different backgrounds.”
One of those events is the Brunch-Ski series, which brings old-school house DJs to the sister restaurant on the second Sunday of every month.
“[It’s a venue for] creating this environment for folks to bask in the rich and OG history of house music in Chicago,” Liu said about the event. “Making sure that some of those legacies and that history is being honored.”
Having fun is in the DNA at Maria’s. Maria’s became a safe haven for artists in the community, including her son.
“I blame Maria for everything,” Ed Marszewski laughed. “She’s completely supported all my artists, my art and my cultural endeavors.”
In 1991, he started Lumpen Magazine, an alternative publication covering politics, culture, and activism, with his friends.
In 2006, he opened Co-Prosperity, an experimental cultural center that is mostly run by artists of color from Chicago. It is also the headquarters of Public Media Institute, which is a community-based art and culture organization that works closely with artists and activists from Bridgeport.
For Ed Marszewski, Maria’s is a part of a connected ecosystem where communities create culture together.
“Our publication is a bar, is a festival, is an event. It’s all the same thing,” Ed Marszewski said. “It’s trying to create culture, and encourage culture, and encourage conversation and innovation or experimentation.”
“And Maria didn’t know that she laid these seeds,” Ed Marszewski said.
But Ed says that the bar has had a more transformative impact on the neighborhood than the art.
“We’d always see in real estate ads that you were like one block away from Maria’s, or four blocks away from Maria’s. Maria’s was this oasis at the time,” Ed Marszewski said. “Everyone respected Maria because she was kind and respectful towards them. […] If you did anything towards my mother, there are a million people ready to beat your ass.”
Ed recalled Maria acting as a “mother to these gangbangers,” helping them get jobs, including one getting an apprenticeship at a carpenter’s union.
“It was a wonderful assortment of working class people and some professionals who mingle together right in this common space of a bar, knowing that they would be safe and comfortable there,” Ed Marszewski said. “And I experienced that, and I understood the value and power of what Maria was able to do, like merely just respecting everyone, right?”