Results tagged “streetfair”

Lately we've dedicated more than a few sentences about Honky Tonk BBQ, the new Pilsen-based barbecue restaurant officially opening in late September. We even announced that they were doing a sneak preview of their menu last weekend. Having sampled their 'cue while making our rounds on the street fair circuit we had a lot of questions, mainly about the true quality of the meat.

A few weeks back in one of the "Friday Buffet" installments we wrote about Honky Tonk BBQ, a vendor that's been traveling around the street fair circuit all summer serving up some decent barbecue, but nothing that makes us start searching for superlatives to describe it. We've attributed that to them traveling around, spending full weekends with the same stuff to sell to passers-by who might be more interested in purely bacchanalian pursuits. Our suspicion is that, once they officially open to the public in September, Smoque might be in for some serious competition for the attentions of foodies and BBQ enthusiasts.

This clip from The Simpsons is as good a place to jump off this week, as we're leaving to see the film after we file this, and the beginning setting is at a fair. Which makes a nice segue for us. Last week, we went to the South Side Arts & Music Fest we profiled in last week's installment and were confronted with the sticker shock of seeing a funnel cake sell for nine...

Sanjaya’s coming! Sanjaya’s coming! Time to let your freak flag fly with some help from bobby pins, of course. And, a few more shows that aren’t so mainstream to pass the time until your favorite Idols come to town. Modern Finnish psychedelia - a genre that we have to admit has never crossed our minds - comes to town. Avarus’ sound has been mysteriously likened in several reviews to the feeling of being in the...

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly.

We admit that in the past we would attend street fests with nary a thought about the entertainment. We just learned to work under the assumption that all the bands were going to suck. Not much has transpired over the years to make us change our opinion on that matter all that much. Of course there are a few bright lights. For instance the Taste Of Randolph has been booking some mighty fine acts over the past few years (even if they stumbled pretty majorly on two of the three days this year,) and more recently the Wicker Park Summerfest has stepped up to the plate to deliver some great music for free.*

Now in its fifth year, Columbia College’s Manifest Urban Arts Festival has grown larger than most of us could ever have imagined. Then again, it's run by arts students. Their imaginations are larger than most. We’re sure someone’s done a study to prove it. Manifest is an arts festival good enough to rival any summer street fair and a graduation party large enough to make students from more conventional schools jealous. We’ve already told you...

Didn't it seem like we were enjoying primo beer garden weather just a couple days ago? That's because we were. Mother Nature, you're such a tease.

Got a joke for you: what's the difference between God and a wine critic? God doesn't think he's a wine critic. Yeah, we think the joke sucks, too. Anyway with the weather spiraling toward the crisp evenings of autumn and sunsets coming quicker every day a glass of wine is an ideal complement. This weekend the greater metropolitan area will be teeming with wine critics, not to mention the wine curious or those just...

Covered in dust from Intonation Fest, Chicagoist headed over to Rock Around The Block to see the band we're most likely to stalk - the Old 97s.

It's the freakin weekend, baby I'm about to have me some fun. Why is Chicagoist so excited for the weekend? Maybe it's because August just drags and drags, with no holidays and nothing in particular to rock out to. Bleeh. That's why we're so excited for Northalsted Market Days tomorrow and Sunday. Did you know that it's the longest-running two-day street fair in the Midwest? Yeah. It is.

Chicagoist thinks it's interesting that our city seems to specialize in certain art forms - namely comics, improv comedy, and music. And the cover story of this week's New City offers a peek into that latter group, the great local music scene. In an article listing "Ten Bands on the Verge" – Chicagoist wonders on the verge of what, exactly? – music critic Dave Chamberlain calls out his favorite up-and-coming hometown acts. While sorting through the fray, he makes a few pithy, dead-on remarks about Chicago music, like "The rest of the world lumps Chicago's indie-rock bands together – and that's not necessarily a good thing" and "Chicago is strewn with with the corpses of bands that burned out and fractured before their star rose."