Booked a room at Virgin Hotel for this Saturday night. My wife and I are going with another couple to the Chicago Theatre to see Experience Hendrix. My question is can someone recommend a good casual place to go have a few drinks and apps before hand maybe around 4:30-6:30? Hotel is a block away from the show, so would prefer something right in that area, Wabash/State & Lake. Thx in advance.

Hub 51, Public House, or Rockit

The Virgin has a cool rooftop bar, Cerise. Just go there imo.

The Virgin has an excellent cocktail bar. If you want to slightly venture, the Cherry Circle Room is great.

Thx for all the suggestions guys, I'll report back!

I have to strongly disagree with this one. I live on Hubbard and would say that these places are the kind of stereotypical, non-distinct, obnoxious River North bars that make others roll their eyes at the neighborhood.

As others mentioned the bar in the Virgin is very nice. If you are looking for a dive with some personality, check out Rossi's

Haha, had some after work brews at Rossi's back when Trump Tower was being built, def has character.

We ended up Checking in to Virgin Hotel around 2:30, just in time to witness all the people stumbling back from the parade. The hotel is really nice, clean, and modern look. We ended up getting something quick to eat at the Diner on the first floor, which was decent. After that we went up to the 2nd floor Commons Club. We really liked this place, spacious, relaxed atmosphere. All the cocktails I had were great too. Also if you stay at the hotel all drinks from 7-8 are free. Our show started at 7:30 so we didn't take max advantage of this but we still ended up saving like $50 bucks from this. First time I ever had a whiskey sour which i liked a lot.

Also first time at Chicago Theatre, and was super impressed with it. Walked right in, directly to our seats, which were very comfortable. The place is just amazing, sound was great...Buddy Guy still jams at 80+ years old too.

After the show we checked out the club on 26, Cerise. This place was really cool too. The outside patio wasn't open but the the place wasn't too crowded which was nice.

Turned out to be a great night, wife and I needed it. With 3 kids we don't have the chance to do these things as much these days. Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, we didn't venture out far but maybe next time will do a 2 night stay and check out some more places.

Last night I finally had dinner at Little Bad Wolf, in Andersonville. A couple months ago, this place suddenly came onto my radar because they had a keg of a rare beer on, which was gone by the time I went the next day. I was kind of shocked, honestly, because I assumed no one had heard of the place. That day, which I think was a Thursday, had a ~90 minute wait for a table, and the owner/manager said that was pretty typical.

In the meantime, I did some research, since all the food looked great while I was hanging out at the bar drinking. I'd actually heard of the place a while back, because it was the new attempt by the old ill-fated, Burger Philosophy. Having given Burger Philosophy more than one chance, and having been disappointed, I guess I'd just written off Little Bad Wolf.

The Yelp reviews for this place are almost comically good. Something about offering fairly reasonably priced, very good bar food, good beer selection, cocktails, and a good atmosphere appeals to the Yelp crowd, I guess. Googling makes it pretty hard to find anyone who doesn't like the place, actually.

Beyond what I already said, what I like about this place is that they're just trying to serve stuff they think people will like. What that means is that it's not a Mexican place, but they know people like chips and guac, so they have it on the menu. Except, they freshly make and fry the chips to order, and they come to the table hot. Similarly, they know people like tacos, so they have tacos. And they thought it would be cool, so they also have steamed bao variations of the same things they put in the tacos. Burgers are definitely the most ordered and talked about thing on the menu, with sliders, a standard double cheeseburger (with optional additional toppings), and a triple patty burger with all the optional toppings (egg, bacon, onion strings). Honestly, just really damn burgers. Possibly the best part, in my opinion? Enough pickle that you could get some pickle in every bite (same with other toppings) instead of sort of picking and choosing what bite got what topping. A lot of burgers fail on this.

The triple burger, served with fries, does come in at $16. In fact, with tacos and bao in the $4 range, it's not "cheap," but the most expensive thing on the menu (steak with fries) is $23, so it's also not expensive.

Otherwise, the food menu is filled out with other stuff that kind of reads like a greatest hits from comfort food bars: mussels, lumpia, crab cake, charcuterie? Doesn't really make sense on one menu, but it's all good. The beer menu usually has about a dozen good beers on tap, then around a hundred things in bottles/cans. Cocktails were good, and the wine list looked decent as well. Music was late 90s alternative on a Saturday night.

Finally, now that the weather is getting better, apparently they have sidewalk seating which could/should facilitate shorter waits. I believe they take phone numbers, though, so if necessary one could just pass the time at Replay a couple blocks south playing video games and drinking beer.

On the whole, strongly recommend. Will likely become somewhat of a regular.

Anybody got any recommendations for Korean BBQ?

The standard recommendations are definitely San Soo Gab San and Cho Sun Ok. Both byo. SSGS is open until 3, I think.

Little Bad Wolf sounds awesome, thanks for the review.

My friend asked me for my top 5 best beer bars in Chicago and I struggled with this way more than I thought I would. Answer I came to was:

1. Map Room (in a tier of its own)

2-5. (too close to differentiate). Villains, Local Option, Bangers & Lace, Beermiscuous

Deliberately left off Old Town Pour House & Howells and Hood since they have ****ty atmospheres and unimaginative beer lists. I have never been to Hopleaf but from what I hear it could easily crack this list.

Thoughts?

leaving out Sheffield's, Hopleaf, Bad Apple, and Fountainhead are massive oversights IMO

I think a lot of this depends what you're looking for in a beer bar. Like, beer selection, or overall bar, or what. Some other ones not mentioned that all have high and lows:

Links
I thought Links was a golf bar, before I went in. Instead, it's a really awesome beer bar (complete with online menu that shows how much remains in each keg), and a pretty wide array of great sausages.

Maria's Packaged Goods
Probably enough notoriety that no explanation necessary.

Jerry's Sandwiches
I kind of dislike the sandwiches at Jerry's, but it's gotten a lot better since they slimmed down the menu significantly. (They used to just have every possible combination of meat, cheese, and toppings as an explicitly listed individual sandwich, on like an 8 page menu.) I think that their specials and their appetizers are pretty great. But more importantly, at least at the Andersonville location, they have about 50 things on tap and quite a bit more in bottles, and the list is usually pretty strong!

Quenchers
Divey, but it was divey before that was super cool. Live music, free popcorn, and beers broken down by country (and some from pretty odd countries) make this place pretty cool.

Goose Island Clybourn
No explanation necessary?

Goose Island Taproom
No explanation necessary? (No food, but can carry in, sometimes food trucks, and I think you can order delivery.)

Binny's Clybourn
I've only recently come to appreciate this place. At first, I assumed the beer list I was seeing online was BS, like so many other bars, but their pretty incredible list is actually reality. Yeah, it's super quiet, and generally fails on the atmosphere front, like you'd expect it to be in the back room of a warehouse liquor store, but it's also just a pretty chill spot to have a beer and talk with people you come with.

But yeah, lists that don't include Hopleaf are hard to imagine

Also need to go to Maria's ASAP. Not a fan of the Goose Island on clybourn (maybe the one on Fulton is better?). I had no idea Jerrys was good for beer, I haven't been there in years-- will also put in future plans.

Gonna try to convince friends to go to Hopleaf on Saturday now.

+1 for Links. Lived nearby last year. Go to place, great for people watching if you are set up at the window

+1 on Little Bad Wolf

Bit of a sidetrack (and apologies if this has been mentioned before) but if anyone is looking for a golf bar then Fairways in Lincoln Park would be your best bet, I think. I went there for Masters and it was a packed house and all the TVs were showing Masters and they had audio playing. Upstairs they have golf simulators which you can reserve.

love the others but Sheffield's is as hit and miss as it gets. schizophrenic music selection as well. but the beer garden does come up big on random summer nights

+1. Stay out of river north. Check out Logan square. Analogue, logman and eagle

The trick is always to go back to the beer school bar. There are also a lot of other fun goodies back there for those that do some looking

Moving to the city in a month. Rank these neighborhoods as places to live in. Taking all things into account(price, nightlife, safety etc). Lincoln Park, Wicker park, Bucktown, Logan Square, Lake view

As someone who's lived in areas of these neighborhoods through the past 10 years:

Logan Square > Bucktown > Wicker Park > Lakeview > Lincoln Park

But really depends on how important you rank price, food, views/lake access, and personal aesthetic. I generally dislike the former frat boy feel of lakeview/lincoln park, but I enjoyed living in Lakeview in my early 20's.

That said, I think buying now in Humboldt Park and Avondale is going to be the best value in the city in 5ish years.

personally I'm the opposite of the guy above

Lakeview > Lincoln Park > Wicker Park / Bucktown > Logan Square

but I do like all of those areas. I probably value lake access more than the other guy, though. Wicker / Bucktown / Logan Square are all great spots to go out at night but as far as living, I prefer the general aesthetic of LP and Lakeview.

Yeah - it's really just personal preference. I think all 5 areas are really nice though, and can't really go wrong with any of them. I'd just go out to a few bars/restaurants in each area and figure out what fits you.

I found when I lived over there I rarely went to the lake much, so the difference in price wasn't worth the trade off. I just like the restaurants and bars way more over on the west side.

This is why I live in Bucktown. While it helps that I'm friends with the GMs and owners at some of my favorite restaurants around here, but if great beer, food, and cocktails are one's thing, then Logan Square/Bucktown/Wicker Park is easily the choice over LP and Lakeview. The thing is that the lake isn't even that far from me. I'm about a 2 mile walk from the lake and when it's nice out like it is today, it's far from a big deal.