In this, our, second installment of Bar Life we visited the Bucktown bar, Lemmings, where we joined suddenlystruttin fan/critic Noelle for her birthday party. Heading into the evening we were rather skeptical, what with the lines between Bucktown and Lincoln Park ever more blurring, thanks to the continual sprouting up of boutiques, coffee shops and terrible restaurants. In any case, the staff and I endured Lemmings and actually found ourselves having a fair amount of fun...
BAR: Lemmings
DRINK SPECIALS:
$2.75 16 oz. PBRs
I know it doesn't sound like much of a deal, but considering the prices of PBR at other bars (median range: $3.25) it's a deal.
WHAT ELSE WAS DRANK?
Lots of PBR, in addition the staff threw down some Irish Car Bombs with the bartender who was simply happy that somebody wanted to drink them as much as he did.
GENERAL ATMOSPHERE:
Startlingly jovial, maybe it was the holiday cheer or the fact that it was Friday, but people we're having fun in spades. Easily one of the best atmospheres -- The Burlington and The Cove, are up there as well -- of any new bar I've ventured to in the past four months, which probably is more telling of the bars I keep company with than anything else. No matter, Lemmings is vastly more upbeat than either Ronnys or The Underground. Minor points off for advertising "Free Wifi," though, to be fair, that's just good business practice, even if I interpret it as modestly uncouth.
CLIENTELE:
White like the South Pole, tons of 20-something professionals who had an air of satisfaction at their own ability to have locked down a middle-management job, a desk and an MBA they then hung on the wall. Boring, but not mean-spirited. The clientele lacked that je ne sai quois, that the staff and I find so endearing at bars. What? Not even a resident drunkard? For shame, Lemmings.
IN THE BATHROOM YOU'LL FIND...
Old, yet still functioning, plumbing and, at least, in the men's room one adventuresome fellow bringing his laptop into the bathroom while still yammering on a bluetooth headset. Nice!
I FORCED MYSELF TO...
Leave early. A number of staff members and I had a lot of heavy lifting to tend to at a rather early hour on Saturday. Sadly, my "better judgement" got the better of me and I left Lemmings before I could have, surely, I'll be back...
Showing posts with label Bar Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bar Life. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Bar Life
Hope everybody had a great weekend. The suddenlystruttin' staff and I went out pretty hard on Saturday night and ended up falling down a ton on the walk home. Of course, we'll all blame the extremely icy and treacherously cracked sidewalks of Humboldt Park/Logan Square and not our inebriated states for the pratfall-filled walk home. On our Saturday night journey to Drunk Town, we had the great opportunity to compare what we normally do, uhh, get hammered at a local dive bar; with what the "other half" does on a Saturday night, uhh, get hammered at an incredibly tony club in the Loop. After our extremely in-depth researching we've come to a number of conclusions and here's our report:
BARS IN COMPARISON: An exhaustively comprehensive report on how different groups of people get drunk.
NEIGHBORHOOD DIVE: Ronny's
POSH LOOP BAR: Underground
DRINK SPECIALS:
Ronny's: $2 Cans of PBR, $3 Shots of Jim Beam and-real head-scratcher- $3 Shots of Baily's.
Underground $400 for table service, $6 Bottles of Amstel Light.
GENERAL ATMOSPHERE:
Ronny's: Not unpleasant, but certainly not welcoming. More along the lines of "Hurry up and get drunk and then leave," actually, a lot like a hooker/John relationship.
Undergound: Haughtiness mixed with a "What kind of car do you drive" air of entitlement. Vapidness lords over this environ and he dares you to try and have an enlightening or, hell, chuckle-worthy conversation over the thundering beats his deejay provides.
CLIENTELE:
Ronny's: Logan Square hipsters and Logan Square Latinos. Be ready for foppish and undersized dudes rockin' scarves, denim jackets and a somber air of melancholy. The women for the most part resemble the men in dress and fashion, usually, just trust your instincts and look for facial hair. If there's an attempt at irony in the mustache it's most likely a dude...I guess.
Underground:Anorexic model-wannabes sporting a jealous rage in their eyes over the cleavage and/or ass and legs of the women servers who work the tables. On the male side of things, expect a forecast of Metrosexual with a 65% chance of douche bag. Button-downs and expensive jeans are the norm. Sidenote: JaeggerBombs were conspicuously and thankfully absent from Underground. I was left to assume they were too "middle-class."
IN THE BATHROOM YOU'LL FIND...
Ronny's A piss-stained floor, a dangling and singular light bulb providing all the illumination you could ever hope for and maybe, if you're lucky, a hobo willing to stab you with a broken bottle.
Underground: Serviceable and multiple urinals. A bathroom attendant named Sylvester. Free cigarettes, tons of bathroom toiletries, a tip jar and, if you're lucky, a CBOT trader offering bumps of yay.
I FORCED MYSELF TO...
Ronny's: Say hello to people I didn't really want to talk to.
Underground: Say hello to people I didn't really want to talk to.
CONCLUSIONS:
Yuppies, in spite, of their opulent lifestyle manage to squeeze the fun out of getting hammered. Seriously, the only person I could talk to was Sylvester the bathroom attendant. Ronny's, though far from ideal, offers so much more bang for the proverbial buck. Also, who doesn't love making fun of hipsters?
BARS IN COMPARISON: An exhaustively comprehensive report on how different groups of people get drunk.
NEIGHBORHOOD DIVE: Ronny's
POSH LOOP BAR: Underground
DRINK SPECIALS:
Ronny's: $2 Cans of PBR, $3 Shots of Jim Beam and-real head-scratcher- $3 Shots of Baily's.
Underground $400 for table service, $6 Bottles of Amstel Light.
GENERAL ATMOSPHERE:
Ronny's: Not unpleasant, but certainly not welcoming. More along the lines of "Hurry up and get drunk and then leave," actually, a lot like a hooker/John relationship.
Undergound: Haughtiness mixed with a "What kind of car do you drive" air of entitlement. Vapidness lords over this environ and he dares you to try and have an enlightening or, hell, chuckle-worthy conversation over the thundering beats his deejay provides.
CLIENTELE:
Ronny's: Logan Square hipsters and Logan Square Latinos. Be ready for foppish and undersized dudes rockin' scarves, denim jackets and a somber air of melancholy. The women for the most part resemble the men in dress and fashion, usually, just trust your instincts and look for facial hair. If there's an attempt at irony in the mustache it's most likely a dude...I guess.
Underground:Anorexic model-wannabes sporting a jealous rage in their eyes over the cleavage and/or ass and legs of the women servers who work the tables. On the male side of things, expect a forecast of Metrosexual with a 65% chance of douche bag. Button-downs and expensive jeans are the norm. Sidenote: JaeggerBombs were conspicuously and thankfully absent from Underground. I was left to assume they were too "middle-class."
IN THE BATHROOM YOU'LL FIND...
Ronny's A piss-stained floor, a dangling and singular light bulb providing all the illumination you could ever hope for and maybe, if you're lucky, a hobo willing to stab you with a broken bottle.
Underground: Serviceable and multiple urinals. A bathroom attendant named Sylvester. Free cigarettes, tons of bathroom toiletries, a tip jar and, if you're lucky, a CBOT trader offering bumps of yay.
I FORCED MYSELF TO...
Ronny's: Say hello to people I didn't really want to talk to.
Underground: Say hello to people I didn't really want to talk to.
CONCLUSIONS:
Yuppies, in spite, of their opulent lifestyle manage to squeeze the fun out of getting hammered. Seriously, the only person I could talk to was Sylvester the bathroom attendant. Ronny's, though far from ideal, offers so much more bang for the proverbial buck. Also, who doesn't love making fun of hipsters?
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