A Family-Owned Old-School Pop Manufacturer Nears a Century in Business in Chicago

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Chicago has mostly moved on from its industrial past, but you can still find some brick buildings from the nineteenth century where small-scale manufacturing continues, sometimes in a manner that has barely changed for decades. That’s the case with Filbert’s Old Time Root Beer in McKinley Park, where Ron Filbert produces 33 flavors of pop (as it is properly called here in the Midwest) for a brand started by his grandfather almost 100 years ago.

“Back in them days, you had a lot of small bottling shops like this, a lot of breweries” in the area, Filbert says with a slight tinge of mourning in his warm Chicago accent, which is almost as endangered as the old-fashioned pop he produces. “Everything changed, of course, when they put the highways in, and then in the mid-’80s, most of the bottle shops like this closed up.”

The current location of Filbert’s – a solid late-nineteenth century building at 3430 S. Ashland Avenue – was previously the home of Newport beverages, which bottled Filbert’s products for Ron’s father, in addition to producing its own pops. Ron only learned to bottle himself after buying Newport and its building in 1993; he still produces Mr. Newport Lemon-Lime as a tribute to the former company.

In the 30 years since, only a few things have changed. Filbert designed its current label in 1997. In 2007, the company stopped taking glass bottle returns – which encouraged  generations of kids to collect and turn in bottles in their desire for pocket change – and removed a “ginormous” bottle washing machine in favor of a more compact rinsing line for new bottles. He started producing sparkling water in seven flavors within the last few years. And he has recently begun switching to pressure-sensitive plastic labels that are affixed to bottles before they’re filled, slowly moving away from the paper ones that are attached at the end of the process because they’re not waterproof and so can’t withstand the rinsing.

When Filbert uses up all his paper labels, he won’t have any more made – but he’ll probably keep the machine that presses them on. “In 2029, it will be a hundred years old,” he says of the machine with pride. Even though they’re no longer made, other pieces of equipment are newer – from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, that is. If something breaks, “We work it the best we can to fix it ourselves, or I have guys I know that in an extreme pinch can make me stuff if I need it,” Filbert says.

All of that machinery is operated only by Filbert and his employee Dennis – “he came with the building,” Filbert jokes about the former Newport worker, who he says has been working in the building for over 50 years.

In its matter-of-fact simplicity and procession of bottles down a line of various appendages and machines, the process calls to mind an automated car wash. Bottles slide along a conveyor, twirling upside down for a rinse and dry before righting themselves to receive a spurt of flavored syrup from a tank sitting above on the second floor. Carbonated water is added, followed by a cap to hold it all in. The bottle then slots into a vise that upends it to mix the heavier syrup into the carbonated water, before rolling through the paper-labeling machine and getting grabbed from the assembly line by Ron and Dennis to be slotted into a box. The last step is taping the box and labeling it with the flavor.

Those flavors range from ginger and root beer to lemonade, banana, champagne, peach, and watermelon, with neon colors to match. Ron has introduced many of the flavors himself since buying the business from his dad in 1985. His grandfather Charlie started making root beer in 1926, as a supplement to his own father’s milk delivery business. Filbert’s occupied various locations along Archer Avenue in Bridgeport until Ron moved it into the Newport building, which had housed brewers and distillers even before Newport took over in 1952, according to Ron.

“My grandfather died in ’77, and then my dad bought his brothers out, and then I bought my dad out in ’85,” he explains. He started working in the company at age ten, washing keg barrels of root beer before driving a delivery truck as soon as he got his license at 16. His wife has nine kids, but “they all have their own careers and their own jobs, past wanting to be in this place,” he says a bit ruefully. Some people have approached him about buying the building and the business, he says, “but I’m not interested in selling at this time.”

He’s looking towards Filbert’s centennial, planning to keep better records of his production and sales and make a push for more purchaser accounts. Filbert’s can be found in some Pete’s Fresh Markets and Binny’s, in addition to at Chicago area restaurants and even breweries like Dovetail, which uses the pop in the beer-and-soda mix known as a radler. Customers can also visit the factory on Ashland and buy cases or bottles directly from Filbert.

While they’re there, they can also peruse Filbert’s personal collection of beer bottles and cans, which is arranged alphabetically on eight rows of shelves that span the not inconsiderable length of his product space. He started collecting them from the street when he was a kid, and they offer an inventory of the bygone breweries that used to produce beverages in Chicago alongside Filbert’s. There are even empty cans of the beers once produced by Filbert’s, and some of the extra large bottles of root beer they sold in the early decades.

“My brother and I, we stopped collecting in ’84, so 90% of the cans up there are pre-’84,” says Filbert. After that, he took over the family business, becoming the custodian of Chicago’s beverage history in a more active way by ensuring that there would continue to be bottles produced in this city for decades to come – and for other kids to find and collect.