The jukebox at Skinny Pete’s Tap on 18th Street has 147 listed selections spanning five decades of rock, country, soul, and what the laminated song cards optimistically categorize as “Party Hits.” Customers may browse these selections. They may insert quarters. They may press buttons corresponding to any of the 147 available tracks. The machine will accept their money, make a satisfying mechanical clunk, and play “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey. Every time. Without exception.

“It started about six weeks ago,” said owner Pete Garza, who is not skinny and whose name is not Pete. (The bar is named after a greyhound he owned in the ’90s.) “A guy put on B-7 — that’s Patsy Cline — and Journey comes out. He tried again. Journey. He tried C-12, which is Springsteen. Journey.” Garza shrugged with the weariness of a man who has heard the opening piano notes of “Don’t Stop Believin’” approximately 900 times in the past month. “At this point, I think the machine has made its choice.”

A hand-written sign now taped to the jukebox reads “YES IT ONLY PLAYS THAT SONG” in block letters. The sign has not reduced the number of people who insert quarters to test the claim. If anything, it has increased it.

“I put in a dollar fifty just to see,” said regular patron Carmen Navarro, nursing a High Life at the bar. “I tried six different songs. I got Journey six times. It’s like a casino, except you always lose the same way.” She took a sip. “The worst part is, I actually like that song. Or I used to. I have complicated feelings about it now.”

Garza contacted the jukebox’s distributor, Midwest Amusement Services, who sent a technician in early March. The technician, according to Garza, opened the machine, stared at its internals for twenty minutes, closed it, and said the CD mechanism had “fused” in a way he’d never seen and that a full replacement would cost $400 plus labor. Garza said he would think about it. He has been thinking about it for three weeks.

“Four hundred dollars is a lot of money to fix something that technically works,” Garza reasoned. “It plays music. It takes quarters. It just only plays one song.” He paused. “And honestly? People seem to like it. Not the song — they’re sick of the song. They like the bit. Guys come in now specifically to show their friends. ‘Watch this, I’m gonna put on Merle Haggard.’ Journey. Everyone laughs. I sell two more beers. The jukebox is making me more money broken than it ever did working.”

The phenomenon has become something of a neighborhood attraction. A TikTok video titled “the jukebox that only knows one song” has accumulated 340,000 views and 4,200 comments, many from people who have apparently traveled to Pilsen specifically to experience the glitch. Garza has leaned into the attention, adding a “JOURNEY HOUR” sign to his happy hour specials board — though, as he acknowledged, “it’s always Journey hour.”

Not everyone is charmed. A one-star Yelp review posted last week reads: “Went for a quiet drink. Heard ‘Don’t Stop Believin” nine times in forty-five minutes. I have stopped believin’.” Another review, more philosophical in nature, reads: “Is it a jukebox if it doesn’t give you a choice? Or is it just a very expensive speaker? Either way, the Old Style is cold.”

Garza said he has no immediate plans to repair the machine. He has, however, taped a second sign below the first, which reads: “QUARTERS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE.” The jukebox, for its part, sits in the corner glowing warmly, waiting for the next quarter, ready to deliver the same eight-second piano intro that has become, for better or worse, the soundtrack of a small bar on 18th Street that never asked to become a destination but isn’t going to complain about it either.