Sullivan’s Tavern has kept the pints pouring for DeKalbians for the last 60 years.

This May the family-owned business celebrated the watering hole’s success by doing what three generations of Sullivans have done for more than half a century: serving DeKalb.

Gerry Sullivan, one of four brothers who own the tavern, said the bar had a couple steak dinners and one big bash in May.

The Sullivans have been serving DeKalb residents for nearly 80 years, since Gerry’s grandfather Earl Sullivan Sr. opened up Sandwiches Known From Coast to Coast in Maple Park in 1927.

Earl Sr. sold the Maple Park business in 1935 and opened a tavern in Sycamore which ran from 1937-1939. The tavern moved to Fourth Street in DeKalb in 1939.

Sullivan’s Tavern moved to its current location on the corner of Sixth Street and Lincoln Highway in 1945.

Sullivan’s remains the oldest bar in DeKalb for many different reasons, Gerry said.

“We’ve had the same clientele,” Gerry said. “All local people, some students.”

Late evenings are rarely the busiest part of the day for the bar. It is usually the afternoon lunch hour when residents need a bite to eat, and after work when people want to blow off some steam, Sullivan said.

The business has thrived on the tight-knit family that runs the establishment.

For years Sullivan children have grown up on the bar stools of the tavern or in the basement of the bar, as was the case for Gerry and his son, Scott Sullivan.

“I worked at Sullivan’s through high school,” said Scott, who graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston. “At least 10 of my cousins did, too. We would spend hours cleaning bottles in the basement, running bottles through shoots. I don’t know if it was good times, but it was what we did.”

Gerry and his brothers and co-owners Greg, Albert and Earl grew up working at the tavern as well, and the bar remains their primary focus.

And so seems to be Sullivan’s secret to success. Like a good Major League Baseball team working its way to the top by building from within, Sullivan’s has thrived on family members keeping the business alive.

“The business has been in the family for three generations,” Gerry said. “Hopefully it will for a fourth, too.”