For anyone who’s been to a bar recently, especially in cities like San Francisco or New York City, a craft cocktail under $18 can feel like a rare find. So when a new spot opens in a market like Chicago, offering an extensive menu of classic cocktails priced at just $12, it’s bound to turn heads.
Enter Gus’ Sip & Dip, a cocktail bar and restaurant that opened in January 2025. The team behind it has created an approachable, classics-only cocktail program that delivers remarkable value to guests. How? By getting rid of the traditional back bar.
Full Book spoke with Scott Kitsmiller, bar manager at Gus’ Sip & Dip, to discuss this unconventional approach, the challenges it presents, and why it’s proving successful for their business.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What was the thinking behind the bar program at Gus’?
When Kevin [Beary] and I were putting together the cocktail program for Gus’, the most important thing was approachability. We wanted to accomplish that through a couple of different avenues. The first was the list of cocktails — we wanted classic cocktails overall and to try to keep them as familiar as we possibly could. The other was the price point. Our big thing was trying to make a bar where you felt like you could go every day without having to dig into your pocketbook to have a couple drinks. Landing on the $12 cocktail was very important for us because we felt it was the perfect price point where we could still achieve the quality and expertise that we wanted on each of these drinks, but at a very value-driven price.
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