In our city of neighborhoods, also a city of taverns, the best neighborhood bars are civic institutions.
Contrary to some cliquish corner taps, these places don’t look on newcomers as outsiders, hooligans or, God forbid, yuppies. More than just places where everybody knows your name, they are also places where everyone is willing to learn your name.
On a larger scale, great neighborhood bars reflect the essence of a neighborhood — where it has been, what it is, and where it’s going. They are warm and ready to inculcate you in their ways, and willing to let you expand the culture of their little community.
Local favorites
Here are some special places in some special neighborhoods.
The Pinewood Beer Garden and Restaurant crosses a North Side neighborhood place with a roadside North Woods supper club. A diverse, predominantly over-40 crowd lines the bar while families sit at rows of green and white checkered tables to munch on fried chicken, homemade pies or the Sunday night prime rib special. The regulars are the furthest thing from threatening for newcomers. In fact, many of the regulars here are routinely in attendance at another neighborhood fixture — St. Margaret Mary’s Catholic Church. After a Devon Avenue Indian buffet at Viceroy of India or Indian Garden, or a cultural event over the border in Evanston, drop in with friends for a few inexpensive rounds and a turn at the bowling game and poker machine.
In the artsy, mellow, gay/straight, old/new immigrant world of Andersonville, the urbane and unpretentious Hopleaf makes a perfect meeting place. Stop in before dining Swedish at Ann Sather, French-Vietnamese at Julie Mai’s Le Bistro or at any of the Middle Eastern eateries along Clark Street like Cousin’s or Reza’s. The savvy drinkers here will happily recommend a Belgian ale, the newest microbrew or an exotic import, which can be nursed at candle-lit wooden tables to sweet jazz tunes from the jukebox. You’ll return to Andersonville for affordable international cuisine and interesting Off-Off Loop productions at the Griffin, Footsteps and Raven Theatres, but you’ll be thinking about the next time you can linger at the Hopleaf.Though the Huettenbar has always been a gathering place for old Germans, it proved its status as a great neighborhood joint when it re-configured its intimidating exterior. A dark outside wall with high, tiny windows was replaced with a picture window, complete with flower boxes, that opens onto Lincoln Square in warm weather. The Old World crowd still graces stools in the recesses, but up front you’re likely to see young and middle-aged professionals talking through the open window to friends passing on the sidewalk. Whether eating at one of the many German, Bosnian, Greek, Thai or Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood or taking in a cheap movie at the Davis Theater or a performance at the Old Town School of Folk Music, stop by the Huettenbar to observe a neighborhood that’s diversifying as much as gentrifying.
The St. Ben’s pocket of North Center hasn’t changed much over the years. For generations, proud families of tradespeople and city workers kept its homes in tip-top shape, and moneyed professionals are moving in. At the heart of this enclave sits the boxy barroom of G & L Fire Escape. American cans, including Hamm’s, dominate before 7 p.m. After that, German and Irish drafts are popular with a younger set. “It’s a good place to come if you need help,” says bartender Patty Bakalik, referring to a clientele heavy with firefighters, cops, electricians, plumbers, construction workers and painters. She also points out a board where notices of deaths, benefits and retirement parties are posted. When bound for a show at Martyrs’ or dinner at Grizzly’s Lodge or Benedict’s Chicago on humming Lincoln Avenue, do as the locals do: make G & L your early rendezvous point or your last stop before home.
Joe, a manager at Oinkers, says matter-of-factly that this spacious bar in the gritty Logan Square/Avondale area does a lot of business simply because it is the “nicest place in the neighborhood.” Maybe … the Big Kmart on Addison and the beloved Abbey Pub and Restaurant are competing attractions. One glimpse of the fabulous beer garden and you’ll be inclined to agree with him. A long, saloon-style wooden porch looks out on a grassy, expansive beer garden, packed in the summer with picnic benches, white umbrella tables and drinkers in various states of good cheer. Year-round, neighbors and those working in the vicinity stop in for lunch and dinner, especially relishing the homemade soups, chili, beefs, fat Oinker burgers and other meals of porcine proportions.
Daily food and drink specials and a TV from every vantage point! Well-situated on the cusp of Lake View and Lincoln Park, the Burwood Tap in some incarnation or other has served locals since 1933 from the corner of Burling and Wrightwood. “Ma’s homemade soups and chili” and, yes, even “air conditioning and color TV” declare the aging signs outside. Inside, the decor is a spiffy nod to yesteryear and rehabbing sensibilities: old-fashioned fixtures cast an orange glow on plants, historic prints and dangling antiques. Suits, flannels and the retail crowd mingle amiably, just one step removed from their wild and crazy days at the Rush & Division bar scene.
Just off of busy Damen Avenue in Bucktown, on the brink of Wicker Park, where a
working class turned hip-and-edgy neighborhood is becoming sleeker by the moment, a casual old outpost make a perfect complement to the nouveau trendiness. With a lived-in look, ancient bar, mural, artwork, encyclopedia set, pool table and Fred the Cat, Charleston is all pub and part coffee house. Java and bagels are served throughout the day. “It’s a public house in the true sense of the word,” offers a bartender, who describes the clientele as “all ages, all professions.” A couple of regulars chime in to elaborate: “That includes artists” and even “social chemists.” As an alternative to Double Door alternative, come by to hear live music three to four nights a week. Bands play everything from jazz to bar rock and honky-tonk.
Marge’s Pub is “about history,” says bartender Kevin Rogers. “The place is just so worn in.” Subtitled The Triangle Tap for its Old Town Triangle location, Marge’s has been here since 1894, including Prohibition. Gin was made in tubs upstairs where Marge now lives. While today’s neighbors are mostly young professionals — traders and lawyers — old-timers are still around. “It’s humbling,” says 30-something Rogers. “Some of these people have been coming in here longer than I’ve been alive.” Others pop in to ease the up to two-hour weekend waits for ribs at Twin Anchors Restaurant and Tavern down the street, or when they want something a couple notches removed from the Gamekeeper’s Tavern & Grill-Stanley’s Kitchen and Tap-Sedgwick’s triumvirate. It’s also a great place for a burger or grilled cheese snack before or after a comedy show at The Second City or Zanies Comedy Nite Club on Wells.
Believe it or not, the Mag Mile is not just a working, shopping and playing zone. It also happens to be a neighborhood. Like their lower-rent counterparts in neighborhoods around the city, locals belly up to Howard’s bar for low-end American beers to unwind and just be themselves. Perhaps in the summer, they’ll order a bratwurst or burger and carry their bottle through the dark, low and narrow space to the tiny refuge of a beer garden out back. Anyone finding themselves overwhelmed by downtown’s glitz and bustle can sneak into Howard’s for such comfort. Among its homespun quirks is the dessert that accompanies all sandwiches: a handful of M & Ms in a small plastic cup.
In the shadow of the United Center and UIC; a stone’s throw from numerous hospitals, social services headquarters and criminal justice agencies; and firmly situated on Little Italy’s Taylor Street, Hawkeye’s makes a nice neighborhood place and sports bar for all types finding themselves at these Near West Side crossroads. Hawkeye’s handles crowds waiting to be seated at Rosebud across the street, and on game and concert days their shuttles deliver spirited fans to the United Center, UIC Pavilion and Soldier Field. Blackhawks players sometimes surface here after a game.
A couple of blocks from “Schlitz Row” — the first strip of saloons allowed to be built on the periphery of George Pullman’s planned (dry) town for his railroad workers in the 1890s — sits the friendly and low-key Pullman’s Pub. A tap for neighborhood working stiffs, this Far South Side bar is miles away from the most of Chicago’s bustle and gives a sense of being transported to a small town in a parallel universe. Spend the day wandering the Historic Pullman District with an audio tour; finish up at Pullman’s Pub for bar food and games to witness the present-day evolution of a laborer’s town.
Because that Tiki-bar element of Chinatown belongs to all of us, the Royal Pacific is the tropical neighborhood lounge for visitors from far and wide. It’s also a fitting cap to those days when the colossus of nearby McCormick Place becomes your ‘hood for 10 or 12 painful hours. Loosen a couple buttons under the Pacific Isle decor, sip a friendly Singapore Sling, Blue Hawaiian or Planter’s Punch, and you’ll be singing, “Please Won’t You Be My Neighbor” to the conventioneer nearest you.
