Palatine community mourns passing of Durty Nellie’s co-owner Mark Dolezal

The Palatine community and music fans from across the suburbs are mourning the death of 75-year-old Mark Dolezal, who’s co-owned Durty Nellie’s in the village’s downtown since 1988.

He passed away peacefully while in hospice care Thursday morning from esophageal cancer that had spread, having been diagnosed only in May, his brother Mike said.

“He went pretty quickly,” Mike Dolezal, the business’ beverage manager, said. “It debilitated him quickly.”

Durty Nellie’s was already 16 years old when Mark and his younger brother Jimmy took it over, having now kept it going through relocation, a devastating fire and the COVID-19 pandemic over the past 37 years.

“He put his heart and soul into this place,” Mike said of Mark. “I think he’s a lot more important to Palatine than they even realize.”

The original Durty Nellie’s location at 55 N. Bothwell St. opened on St. Patrick’s Day 1972. The Dolezal brothers purchased it from the founders and were later asked to move to the current site at 150 N. Smith St. in 2003 to accommodate redevelopment of the downtown.

Mark had experience as a bartender, while Jimmy had previously worked in transportation for a lumber company.

The two were determined to maintain and build on the business’ existing small-town vibe, Jimmy said, which was the basis of Mark’s love for the whole industry.

“He liked being around people. He liked making sure everyone was having a good time,” he said of his brother. “Everyone who walked in here knew who Mark was, knew who I was. You can’t please everyone but he tried to please everyone. That’s the feeling he gave those thousands of people.”

Mark’s son, Zak, who became his business partner and the chef at Duke’s Alehouse & Kitchen in Crystal Lake, also credits his father for his own entry into hospitality.

“He just always loved people,” Zak said. “He raised me in the industry. I felt like he was always someone I wanted to emulate. He’d say, ‘I please customers. That’s my job.’”

A January 2019 kitchen fire caused by a leaking gas line caused $1.4 million in damage and led to a 10-month rebuild. But then the pandemic struck just months after the reopening.

Nevertheless, by the celebration of Durty Nellie’s 50th anniversary in 2022, things seemed to be getting back to normal.

“I am amazed I am still in this business at all,” Mark told the Daily Herald at the time. “I thought it was just going to be a few years when I got into it.”

The Durty Nellie's stage has been graced by such artists as Lucinda Williams, The Marshall Tucker Band, Cracker, the Violent Femmes, Gin Blossoms, Johnny Winter, Dick Dale, Ronnie Montrose, David Allan Coe, Jonas Brothers, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and many others.

On the 50th anniversary, Mark said he fondly remembered a show by John Mayall, who sold his own CDs in the lobby afterward.

Though details of Mark’s services were still pending Monday, Jimmy said the way he’d like everyone to honor his brother is with a big celebration involving bands in the near future that will “put Nellie’s back on the map!”

Zak agreed that’s exactly the way to do it.

“My dad is always up for a party,” he said. “He wants to bring joy to everybody.”