El Cortez - TBone

Did not like.

A bunch of overdressed teenagers drinking expensive drinks, having shitty dance music blasted at them (underlaid with the even shittier dance music from the attached nightlcub).  It's supposed to be a tequila bar, but there's no tequila menu.  The marguerita was good, but otherwise I have no desire to go back there.

As a side-note, the place *should* be really cool.  The service was fantastic.  The layout is amazing, and would be fantastic for a punk or metal themed pub (even with an area you could drag the tables out of if you wanted to set up a stage on occasion).  Good size, good decor.  The beers were a good price, though everything else was way too expensive.  The food seemed good (obviously it's all Mexican themed).

It's a mystery how you can take such a great location and layout and make it suck so bad, but they found a way.  The chairs were uncomfortable, the music was awful and too loud, the crowd was terrible, the managers seemed up their own asses.  If you go to nightclubs because you like the atmosphere and the music and really wish you could capture that experience except without talking to anyone or dancing, then this may be the place for you.

It sucked; easily the worst place we've been to so far.  We bailed early and went to the Strat, where we could have a conversation and relax.  I'd say 'my god I sound old' but I've been saying this since I started going to bars.  So I guess that means I was old at a young age.

The Old Strathcona Hotel - TBone

I don't think anyone saw this one coming.

Last time I was there was about 17 years ago, and it was a fad at the time.  It was brightly lit, cheap (recycled) beer, overflowing with fratboys and retards, with blasting music, no service to speak of and a lousy layout.  I was not expecting much when it was next on our list, and some of us tried to skip it.

Now it's a classic dive bar.  VLT's in one corner, pool tables in the back, only one beer on tap (and it's cheap), conference hall 'metal chair' furnishings, with Kokanee ads from 1987 on the walls.  The crowd is a mix of geezers, professional alcoholics, and university kids.  Some yelling but no fighting. Plenty of floor space between tables, and it's usually only half-full.  Service is somewhere between 'meh' and 'none' (at one point the only waitress quit and stormed out at the start of the night).  'Food' consists of popcorn and pickled eggs.

I don't know why, but it's awesome. I love dive bars, and it hits it well.   It's 'actual-dive' not 'faux-dive'.   The tables only occasionally smell like someone peed.  The prostitutes are obvious, and not pushy.  The beer is adequately cold.  The glasses look like they've been washed in the past 24 hours.  The jukebox music selection of the regulars is mysteriously, shockingly good.  Nobody seems to take themselves too seriously; everyone seems pretty laid back. It's a great end-of-night place to go for a pitcher and to shoot the shit, and not worry about anything.

I suspect it's going to be a regular part of the rotation moving forward.  We go to some mediocre places, and the standard question when a place sucks is already "wanna just say 'fuck it' and go to the Strat?"  There may be a larger message here about the direction of my life, but I refuse to worry about it.

The Pourhouse - TBone

Another place that's getting a regular spot in the rotation. It's pretty good, but not great.  It's kind of a restaurant / midscale pub mix.  Decent furnishings, well-lit, cheeseball art on the wall, diverse menu that someone obviously put a lot of work into, good beer selection, well dressed staff, etc.  Packed on a Friday and Saturday between about 8:00 and 9:30, then the kids go elsewhere and the adults go home, and it clears out.

The crowd is mostly a mix between 20-and 30-somethings college / middle-class types.  Occasionally you'll get a rowdy table of kids or an older couple.  Generally pretty quiet and reasonable crowd, though a couple of the regulars at the bar are kinda douchebags.  The prices are quite high, and I guess this keeps out the riffraff.

Music comes from a wifi-jukebox with a good selection, which can be good unless you get a bunch of idiots playing hours of Hall and Oates ironically.

Beer selection is pretty good, including a bunch of rotating taps.  They also used to have great monthly promos where they'd get a whole bunch of interesting bottles and cans for a month, but they seem to have stopped that.  Unfortunately they don't have a good 'comfort beer' selection; diverse choice in flavor but it all tends to be pretty strong, and not the sort of thing you want to have several of.  The menu is pretty diverse, and generally the food is quite good.

Probably the thing that sticks out most is that it's been declining a bit recently, in a lot of little ways.  The food's just getting less good.  They used to have cool stuff on the TV's (campy movies Wrestlemania, etc) but now it's just sports.  Rotating taps rotate less often, and the selection that's there is kind of bland.  No more weekly / monthly can selection.

Bathrooms are a pain; only one stall for men and it smells 'moist'.

The owner seems nice and is quite active and engaging with the customers.

On the whole I enjoy going there but I don't really have an attachment to it.

Oh to be 18 again. And also a robot.

Everyone here is 16 and excited to be going to bars. Wtf.

I started this draft on January 29th.  I was probably drunk.  I have no idea what this is referring to, but yeah, this is a pretty common experience as a 30-something booze hound.

The Tavern - TBone

We've been going to Tavern a bit lately, and ended up all there together on a long weekend Thursday so I suppose it's time it made it on the list.

So far I quite like it there.  It's a smaller place that hits the fundamentals just right - decent prices, decent menu, comfortable atmosphere, cool staff, non-annoying crowd.  Thursdays are annoying because they do open mic night and I'd rather talk to friends than listen to some chump sing John Mayer ballads that he feels a special connection to, but other than that it's pretty good.  

I gather it's under new management; they have an alt / heavy-metal sort of crowd, though the bar itself doesn't really do anything to appeal to them.  Music is generally pretty good, not obnoxious and quiet enough that it's ignorable, though they often play decent rock / punk / alt stations or mixes. Food is good, though recently they cut about half of the menu so it's getting worse.  Pretty much pizza, burger, and sandwiches now.  Plenty of grilled-cheeses to choose from, though they got rid of build-your-own.

The only real complaint I have is the beer selection.  No Keith's, though they have Grasshopper and Trad.  The revolving tap usually has something good, and has the usual Trad / Grasshopper options, but they're lacking something that I enjoy in large quantities, and the Guinness is way too damned expensive.

H2 Old for this shit

Stop number 2. H20 Lounge.

As the only karaoke person in the group, I was likely the only one looking forward to this stop. We arrived at the standard for all karaoke dive bars around 9:30. The singing hadn't started yet and the DJ music was horrible and needlessly loud. We waded through the sparsely populated venue and sat down. We were promptly greeted by the bartender and he listed off their depressing selection of draft beer.

Food and Drinks:
- Never offered a menu. Ensure if they serve food. If they do, I am not optimistic. I ate beforehand.
- Great service, though. Staff very attentive. The bar staff when serving are the only people in the establishment that give a fuck about anything.
- Only drinkable beer on tap is Yellowhead

Atmosphere and Clientele:
- Encouraging and non-judgey atmosphere for karaoke
- Lasers!
- LED orbs!
- Light up dance floor
- Washrooms less than ideal
- Zero fucks given by bar patrons and cleaning staff
- Favourite barfly: Short older guy who sounded like Lemmy and didn't try to sing the songs in time.

Mr. Blurrkins, doing what he does best.

Intangibles:
- It was the end of January and the Christmas tree was still up
- Nice level of dankness
- Overall aura of despair and regret, but with lasers!

Karaoke:
- The DJ talked about the hockey game during someone's song.
- Only two songbooks, both have almost half the pages ripped out and place in a pile (not in order, of course) on the table next to the book.
- Since there was only 5 people singing, there would be DJ breaks in between sets. He apparently had 10 songs to choose from for these sets.
- The DJ plays a harmonica, as well
- Joss asked the DJ to pick a good duet for her and I to sing, we would go up not knowing what the song was and try our best. He picked Sonny and Cher. It was disconcerting that he thought that was a good song. Afterwards, Joss asked him for a better duet song
- No Safety Dance or Run's House :(
- A few pleasant surprises on the list. Was very happy to get the chance to sing some MC5
- You can pretty much sing as much as you like.

In conclusion, a good time was had, but I don't think I could handle going here more than a handful of times in a year.
Rating: 12/10

H2O Lounge - TBone

Not really much to say.  It's the H2O, a Whyte ave dive-bar institution.  You know what you're getting in to.  Dank, loud, off-tempo karaoke with large quantities of cheap beer, earnest service, and a crowd of people that give no shits.  Karaoke's not my thing, but it's a great time every once in a while.

The Next Day Report: pretty tired from closing the place down, but no hangover to speak of.

The Empress - Tintorera

Pros:

•  Decor 
•  decent beer selection. Decent crowd. Dank.

 cons not the most comfortable tables.. only one we would sit at. Kinda loud. No food. Would need to be here before 9 to get a table I think.
Bad music but could bewworse it gotgood later in yhe evening but i think they were being ironic. Too dark I can't see Sam's eyeshadow. Table
 is too small.Slow service.

• 
  

 3.5/5

TBone's take on The Empress

The Empress looks like a cool place but didn't click for me.

The staff seem to actually want to be there, and though there were a few painfully long waits, they generally kept a good eye on the table. The drinks selection was middling to poor; mostly big rock with a house winter, Guiness, and Blache de Chambly.  No Keith's, which is a problem.

The decor is cool (lots of wood and dark colors), though not really comfortable (all-wood chairs and weird benches with torture-backs).  There didn't look like there would be enough comfortable tables to reliably find a place to sit (and I'm being generous by calling them comfortable) so long sessions end in more pain than they really need to.  A weird note about the bathroom - the men's doesn't have a door, and doesn't have enough of a turn going in.  If you lean back you can see clearly into the bar as you're taking a piss, which is a bit weird.

The crowd was decent, looked like the average age was mid-late twenties.  Not too many hipsters or trendy douchebags, though there were a suspiciously high number of toques.  People seemed to be there to have a good time, and there were no annoying tables around us.

The DJ was not the worst I've seen, but he was pretty far from good; he was kind of like one of Jay's rejected proteges.  The music ranged between playing good music ironically to playing just bad music.  It's a moot point because you can mostly only hear muddy bass anyways.  The volume was sometimes okay, sometimes loud enough to drown out conversation.

The next day's hangover was vicious.  Way worse than I'd earned with six pints.  Everyone else was complaining about hangovers the next day, too; I was willing to chalk mine up to the Pilsener but since everyone else has one, I'm wondering if they don't clean the taps properly.

It's really too bad; on first impression it looks nice and has a great dank, but it unravels pretty quickly after that. Overall it was okay; I wouldn't go out of my way to go there, which is a problem because I have to go out of my way to get there.  No chance of it being a regular place; the lack of Keith's disqualifies it immediately, lack of comfortable seating brings it down further, and the finisher is the killer hangover.

An Empressive Debut

Stop one on our Whyte avenue drinking adventure was the Empress Ale House.The other members of the expedition were already there, SamIam and myself arrived late. Walking in the door, I was struck by the lovely dankness. The approximate level of dank that our beloved Elephant & Castle possessed. We sat down and were promptly greeted by a pleasant, but very close talking server. I didn't dare turn my head for fear that I would accidentally smack her in the face with my nose. She smelled of vanilla extract.

Enough lollygagging, down to business!

Food and Drinks
- Jameson on the rocks with appropriate amount of ice, no straw
- No Keiths on tap :(
- Draught selection meets minimum standards. Reasonable enough selections, Big Rock, Blanche de Chambly
- Service was inconsistent, but not the worst
- No Food! This is enough to prevent it from becoming a place we frequent too often. However, you apparently can order pizza and there is a Subway located nearby

Atmosphere and Clientele
- Dank!
- Nice decor, not falling apart - So many hipsters. Much plaid, neatly manicured beards and touques worn indoors. Walking through the bar made me feel like I was walking through an old episode of the Spiderman cartoon where they would re-use old frames instead of making new ones.

- Other patrons kept to themselves and were not obnoxious
- Music alternating between bad, but ignorable and decent (played ironically, I am sure). Still, even if they are playing Billy Joel and Pat Bentar ironically, they are still playing Billy Joel and Pat Benetar.
- Seating is limited, and most of it is high tables
- Benches are not benches.
- Patio on 99th is not a great place for a patio, but at least they have one.

Intangibles
- Felt odd being our first stop for pints that was not The E&C. I got the feeling we were in a fishbowl.
- Some parking nearby, but is a bit of a long walk for some of us.

- They take your credit card if you want to run a tab(?) - Comedy and trivia nights Verdict
Acceptable. Not going to be our usual place, unless everything else really sucks. Decent choice every now and then, though.
6.25/10

Next stop, H20 Lounge!

Cheers,

Chomps

It Begins

After the Elephant and Castle on Whyte closed down, we needed to find a new place to call home.  So we decided to hit every pub on Whyte Avenue, working our way from the north side of Whyte ave from 99th street to 109th street, then back the other way along the south side.

The Rules:

We have to give a fair shot to every bar along the way, with a few rules and exceptions:

1. No lines, no cover

   If we can't get in to a place, we leave and go somewhere else.  After 3 tries, we strike a bar from the list and don't come back.

2. There must be a dedicated bar and seating area.  

   There has to be an area where no minors are allowed, with tables and chairs available (other than just at the bar itself).

3. Within two blocks of Whyte

   All bars within 2 blocks of Whyte ave are included.  Bars further out can be added if everyone agrees

4. The five of us must be together

   The five E&C regulars have to be there for a visit to count.  We can go without someone being there, but it doesn't get knocked off the list unless we're all there

5. We must have at least one pint

   If everyone *truly* hates it we can agree to leave early and go somewhere else, but we have to have at least one pint and it has to be unanimous.  Mostly hating it is not enough.

6. If a place opens after we've passed it, it's included 

   This may take awhile, if a bar opens after we've gone past it's location, we still have to go there.

7. Nothing in the Sheppard Building

   The former home of the E&C is off-limits.

This means we'll be visiting some places we normally think of, like restaurants or hotels with attached bars.  It definitely means places we'll be visiting places we'd normally avoid.  I really hope Cook County always has cover.