Chicago's Smokey's Venice Inn Ashtray

Like New! NO CRACKS, CHIPS or SCRATCHES!!! The ashtray is from Smokey’s Venice Inn at 318 W. 115th St. in Chicago, which operated around the 1950s–early 1960s, before that location later became other restaurants. What the ashtray tells usThe phone number format “CO 4-9639” is a 2‑letter exchange code style used in Chicago mainly in the 1950s and phased out in the early 1960s, which dates the item to that era. The address “318 West 115th St.” appears in later restaurant ads with different names, showing that Smokey’s Venice Inn was an earlier business at that same spot, no longer listed by the time of those later ads. Most likely operating yearsGiven the phone format and later reuse of the address by other restaurants, Smokey’s Venice Inn was most likely open sometime between the late 1940s and early 1960s, with strongest evidence pointing to the mid‑1950s to very early 1960s. Exact opening and closing years are not easily traceable in public online records, so the piece can be treated as a mid‑century Chicago neighborhood bar/restaurant item from roughly the 1950s.