We dissect the reasons behind the failure of the attempted Trader Vic's remount. more ›

It's no secret that we are big fans of Sable Kitchen & Bar. We previewed it, interviewed the chef; heck, we even had a staff dinner there. Chef Heather Terhune and head bartender Mike Ryan do a great job, and their work is paying off on a national scale. In their April Issue, Food and Wine Magazine selected Sable as one of the best new bars in America. The only other Chicago spot to get the nod was the (still-unopened) Aviary. more ›

Who doesn't love free drinks? If you're a bar-goer and you don't have Drink Deck Chicago, you are spending too much money. We've written before about discount "decks" - 52 playing card-sized coupons that give you discounts at 52 different restaurants. This one is a little different. Instead of restaurants, this deck gets you discounts at bars. If you look now, you can get a free trial of the iphone app that gets you a $10 discount for nothing but a click. more ›

We began receiving tweets and e-mails last night stating that Maria Wuczynski, owner of Marie's Riptide Lounge, passed away Sunday night. Seeing as how we haven't seen an obituary for Wuczynski in the papers (and given Marie's status as one of the most popular 4 a.m. bars in town), we decided to place a call to the bar for confirmation. more ›

This morning, WBEZ introduced us to the "hot wings index," gauging the economic index of the playoff game by the number of wings restaurants in Green Bay and Chicago were stocking up. One restaurant, in Evanston, was planning to go through 6000 pounds of hot wings - that's 3000 chickens! Anyway, if you are looking for deals of your own, you have come to the right place. Bears fans (and Packers fans, and indifferent football agnostics) can enjoy some great food and drink specials this weekend, as bars and restaurants try to squeeze one more hot weekend of business out of football fever. more ›

We're stunned and saddened right now at the news that Sheffield's owner and Friend of Chicagoist Ric Hess passed away last night. Hess had a heart attack at the bar. more ›

A Denver woman who was in town for her baby shower is considering filing a lawsuit against a Roselle bar for kicking her out for being pregnant. Michelle Lee was at the Coach House Restaurant and Bar drinking water when she was asked by a bouncer if she was pregnant. The eight-months-along Lee couldn't hide it and confirmed she was and was then asked to leave, along with her friends. The bouncer said that the bar could be liable if she wound up hurting herself. more ›

Will 2011 be Bourbon's year? We sure hope so. Big Star, for one, is doing its part to make that happen with exciting recent and upcoming additions to its single-barrel Bourbon program. Paul Kahan hinted at the arrival of freshly acquired barrels on Twitter last week, so we caught up with Michael Rubel, beverage director of Big Star (and neighboring Violet Hour), to find out what we should be sipping on our next visit. Rubel has been building Big Star's stockpile of exclusive Bourbons, bottled from barrels he hand-picked in Kentucky, for more than a year. Six barrels' worth are already available, and the contents of two more will hit the shelves this week and (probably) next. more ›

Dozens of cocktail dens around Chicago have been quick to muddle, squeeze and otherwise embrace in their drinks the increasing amount of small-batch, regionally produced spirits, mixers and bitters available to them. But perhaps none go so far as the Watershed to source locally. To boot, none feel quite so much like a den. more ›

As founder, CEO and acting board president of the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Jeppsen's Malort, I have found that there's no holiday that can't be made better by applying a small dose of our locally-infamous grimace-inducing herbal liqueur. As such, select Chicagoistas y -istos flock to anything that combines the Christmakwanzakkah spirit with bitter flavor, and finding this warmed our hearts with the glow of a dozen ounces of Carl Jeppsen's mulekick. more ›

We have a tradition of occasionally saluting an old favorite bar or restaurant under the heading "Chicago Classics." With the blustery winter air descending upon us like Uncle Buck moving in to baby-sit, and the holiday-shopping season officially at full tilt, today feels like the day to remind ourselves of Club Lucky. more ›

Blokes and Birds, a new English gastropub in Lakeview, opens tomorrow after months and months of anticipation. The menu will focus on English and American comfort foods, with a lot of classics like Sheppard's Pie (with lamb shoulder braised in stout for 14 hours), Fish and Chips and Warm Marmalade Pudding. The bar will stock over 70 varieties of imported beer, and for all you music fans, will host a dedicated English Rock night every week. Entrees are well-priced in the $10-$18 range - we're excited to try the Bloke's Burger, with 4 year old cheddar, drambuie onions, malt vinegar aioli & lettuce. The craft cocktail list looks impressive, and none of the drinks top $12. more ›

Big Star is getting close to its first anniversary and they're ringing it in with beer, tacos, and music. Pretty much like any night there. more ›

The most intriguing aspect of Ed Marszewski's complete overhaul of his mother's Bridgeport bar and package store is the community cocktail menu. Instead of bringing in a ringer like the Whislter's Paul McGee or Brad Bolt of Bar DeVille to craft a cocktail menu, the list of highballs is being crafted by neighborhood locals and customers on a case-by-case basis. It fits with Marszewski's concept of bringing back the semblance of community to the tavern and gives those customers who do land a drink on the menu a sense of ownership and pride. more ›

Dress codes, especially at fine dining establishments, are a common cause of debates nowadays. It doesn't surprise us to see expensive restaurants banning ripped jeans or requiring a tie and jacket, even though it seems like those sorts of requirements are becoming rarer and rarer. But bowling alleys? What is our world coming to? more ›

For about a year, I've been discussing in passing with Wiener and Still Champion owner Gus Paschalis on a Sonoran hot dog collaboration. When made with care, this border take on the hot dog can be as revelatory as your first Coney dog, NEw York style dog, or Chicago dog. more ›

Chicago's soccer fans may have a home team to root for, but finding places to congregate and catch the game (other than Toyota Park) can be a bit of task. Baseball, football, basketball and now even hockey fans have their pick of the city when it comes to finding fan-friendly bars showing their game of choice. Soccer die-hards don't have it quite as easy (though spots like The Globe Pub and the Small Bar franchise have carved out dedicated niches) when it comes to finding a bar to call their own, but Chicago Fire Technical Director Frank Klopas hopes that will change with the new soccer-centric sports pub, The Pitch. more ›

There used to be a cheap eats place called Howie's that served up some better-than-average hot dogs and sandwiches, along with adult beverages. Since Howie's was indistinguishable from most other hot dog joints, however, it was a hard row for them to hoe being located, as they were, in the middle of Jerry Kleiner's South Wabash restaurant row. David Yanda and Bill Bolton, partners in Zapatista across the street, have transformed the former Howie's space into Flo & Santos Pub and Pizza, a casual Polish/Italian-themed space that holds some serious promise. more ›

Ever since news broke in winter that Cork & Kerry owner Billy Guide was eyeing the former Jimbo's space near U.S. Cellular Field to open a Bridgeport outpost, we've been keeping tabs on the space, waiting for some sign of progress toward opening. With the Sox sucking like a mortal chest wound, this has taken on some added urgency. more ›

From the inbox: Starting April 12, DMK Burger Bar will be open seven days a week. They'll also be offering carryout service from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. As someone mentioned on twitter, wonder how the fried pickles (above) will handle the transport. more ›

The Chicago area is two days away from the full throttle launch of Stone Brewing in the market, and owner Greg Koch appears to be leaving no stone unturned (pun totally intended) in saturating the market with his beers. Marching into Chicago like MacArthur returned to the Philippines, Koch will be bringing a full contingent of sales and brewery reps from California for the festivities, including Midwest sales rep Aaron Tyrell, who will soon become the best friend of beverage managers and beer buyers throughout the city. The Stone launch also dovetails nicely into the upcoming Craft Brewers Conference coming to town April 7-10. more ›

A rising tide floats all boats: our classical music correspondent Alex Hough asked me the other day if there was any rhyme or reason behind all the recent brewery and brewpub openings, or if it was just a coincidence. I allowed that it was a bit of both. Craft beer sales increased last year by 7.2 percent in volume and 10.3 percent in sales dollars. While Chicago has lagged in other areas of the country as a craft beer community, the learning curve for consumers has been fast and they've coalesced around the new openings. It doesn't hurt that the established breweries and brewpubs in the area produce an overall high quality product. more ›

River North lounge English made official yesterday what some have known for weeks. Former Between Boutique Café and Lounge chef and "Top Chef" contestant Radhika Desai is the new Executive Chef. Desai has added new menu items to the list such as Lobster and White Truffle Mac & Cheese (bite-sized bits of meaty lobster in a Parmesan-Cheddar blend with garlic and truffle oil); duck confit wonton dumplings served with Bordeaux-spiked strawberry jam; Prince Edward Island mussels steamed in a rich ginger-garlic curry sauce; and her take on Shepherd's Pie, with ground lamb, mushrooms, carrots, onions, peas and house-made gravy with a mashed potato topping. more ›

Check out this beautiful cheese plate, one of many reasons that Rootstock was one of our favorite new bars last year. That is every cheese the Humboldt Park wine bar carries on its menu. You've got the Minnesota Big Woods Blue at the bottom left, a sheep's milk cheese with a light, grassy note. Directly above that is Alpine, a cow's milk cheese from New York state with hardness like Parmesan, but a rich complex flavor. Next to the Alpine is another New York state cow's milk cheese with a washed rind and fruity complexion called Hudson Red. more ›

did a simple comparison between grocery stores and bars to discover a remarkable geographically [sic] phenomenon. We had expected that grocery stores would outnumber bars and for most parts of North America that is the case. But we could also clearly see the "beer belly of America" peeking out through the "t-shirt of data." Starting in Illinois, the beer belly expands up into Wisconsin and first spreads westward through Iowa/Minnesota and then engulfs Nebraska, and the Dakotas before petering out (like a pair of love handles) in Wyoming and Montana.

Last month I posted about the re-branding of Wicker Park's Chaise Lounge as The Southern. At the time we wrote about how I was looking forward to chef Cary Taylor's "revamped menu and an interior that should better complement his cooking and influences." Schizophrenia was the best way to describe Chaise Lounge: Taylor's upscale take on Southern-inspired cuisine ran head-first into the brick wall that was the artifice of Chaise Lounge's South Beach nightclub vibe. It's damn hard to promote good cooking in a lounge more fitting for a Jager Bomb and flavored martini crowd. So partner Jim Lasky stripped the downstairs bar down to the bare wood and replaced the club jams with loud and welcome doses of Drive-By Truckers. Still a manufactured vibe, for certain. But one I can embrace easier. more ›

We ran our very first Properly Sauced nearly two years ago. So, after a bit of research, we were shocked! shocked! to discover that we had never written about what is arguably our very favorite cocktail: the Mai Tai. more ›

Beer could be flowing in the space formerly occupied by Jimbo's Lounge sometime in the near future. The Southtown Star reports that an incidental liquor license application for the space has been sent to Billy Guide, owner of Cork & Kerry in Beverly. Before Guide can move forward with removing all vestiges of the "beloved" (Southtown Star's word, not ours) Jimbo's from the face of Bridgeport, he'll need to file a site plan, submit documentation about ownership, and fulfill other requirements before he can file the liquor license application, as well as notify register voters living within 250 feet of the establishment and give them a chance to voice objections. more ›

A little history for you from back when I lived on the north side: before the Long Room opened at 1612 W. Irving Park Rd., the space used to be this dive bar called Blue Bird Liquors. Blue Bird Liquors was known for serving hard liquor fast, a liberal ID checking policy, hillbilly regulars, boilermakers and t-shirts that read "No fucking address. No fucking phone #." God, I miss Blue Bird Liquors. It was the kind of bar my stepdad used to take us to when he'd pull us out of school; he was a hillbilly, for those keeping score. I'd stagger out of there and had the options of getting a gyros sub at Mr. Submarine next door, crossing six lanes of Irving Park traffic to get to Diner Grill's slinger, or walking up to the drive-thru window at the Popeye's on the corner of Irving Iark and Ashland to counter all that alcohol. more ›

Since we first posted about it Friday, more restaurants have offered to join in the Haitian earthquake relief efforts. The list of restaurants that wil give diners the opportunity to add $1 to their checks through the 24th, with the money going to Heartland Alliance, has grown considerably. the full updated list can be viewed here. more ›