A Restaurant and a Wreck

Plus a brew pub and the final countdown.

 

For the uninitiated, welcome to ChicagoBarBracket.com.

Over the next several years I am doing an NCAA style competition between 68 bars in Chicago.  I hope to survive and find the best bar in Chicago.

For anyone who actually reads this blog, my apologies for not posting. Holidays, my brothers passing and my now former job all impeded my imbibing.

Now, enough tsk-tsk and more gulp-gulp.

Back in November I did a matchup between Au Cheval and The Happy Village.

I started writing this post the day after the matchup, but kept getting side tracked (and no, not the Sidetrack). I struggled to describe the Au-Village experience partially because I wanted to change my writing style, partially because Au Cheval isn’t a bar (more of a diner), and mostly because The Happy Village really sucked.

I’m sorry I’m not a good enough writer to think of a more clever way to say it, but The Happy Village sucked and it is a brutal endeavor to find not unpleasant things to say about it.

I tried writing the post sober, I tried writing the post drunk, and even tried the hopefully solid method of writing while on the throne, but nothing worked.

Now, just for the sake of getting The Happy Village out of my mind and onto paper, I’m going to start with the review of The Happy Village before going onto the rest of the night’s happenings.

The Happy Village

“The place sucks. The staff couldn’t have cared less about us, the place was a dump (and i’ve been to divey bars, but this one …sucked). The crowd playing ping pong was pretty friendly, but the overwhelming apathy of the staff killed our buzz whenever we made contact with them. Maybe it’s a strategy to make people hate their lives and want to drink more. Maybe it’s a ploy to be so miserable so that everyone else coming to the bar is happy in comparison.

The beer garden seemed nice. Unfortunately it was too cold to enjoy and I guess that’s not The Happy Village’s fault, but I feel like they would probably take credit for that inconvenience if they could.

After finally getting one of the bartenders to talk a bit, I learned that the bar has operated since or before prohibition. Personally I think they should have abolished it along with prohibition.

Other than that, everything in the bar felt like it was on a slant, especially the bathroom. Because of this I wouldn’t recommend going here unless you want to know what it’s like to be an Irishman on the Titanic”

Now, as for the rest of the night, we started off pretty early, which isn’t saying much given my history with the Bar Bracket. This is done mostly so I don’t have to deal with lines and also have an opportunity to talk to the bartenders before they end up in the weeds.

And by “night” I am using a fairly liberal definition of the word. Shit Stain & I started off by joining Speakeasy & The Wheach for some lunch beers out in Naperville. Shit Stain & I followed this with some pre-training (my new word for pregaming on the train) on the Metra BNSF. From what I’ve observed on the BNSF I’m starting to thing it stands for Beer! No Sober Fucks.

Eventually we made it Union Station and found Au Cheval around 4:45. Unfortunately, Mimsy, Shitstain and I were on time, but The Razor was busy listening to Taylor Swift or working, or something. This is unfortunate because we came primarily for drinks and just wanted a seat at the bar, but Mike the host wouldn’t seat us until our whole party arrived.

Well, I shouldn’t point fingers at Mike, I’m sure it’s Au Cheval’s policy and he has a job to do. Also, I figure it’s well within Au Cheval’s rights to make this policy considering how long the wait got later in the night.

Now, about that countdown for The Rocket. The first and best idea we had was to wet our whistles elsewhere and managed to do so at the conveniently located Haymarket Pub & Brewery across the street.

As a note on Haymarket, this is a bar that people constantly ask me about when I first mention the Bar Bracket. Haymarket is not one of the bars that made the bracket. Normally I would interject the word “unfortunately” into that sentence (Unfortunately I qualify about 50% of all sentences with the word), but in this case I feel nothing is lost by not including Haymarket.

Let me be clear, Haymarket’s brew’s are delicious, but the bar itself felt pretty unremarkable. Clean and comfortable, but generic. Service was nice, but a bit slow. Maybe we would have had a different experience with a table, but I don’t see the attraction of coming back here (besides the brews.)

After The Rocket landed we departed Haymarket and went back to Au Cheval.

It was almost fitting to go to Au Cheval after Haymarket because I have received just about as much criticism about Au Cheval being on the bracket as I have received regarding Haymarket’s absence.

Still, I’m stubborn about sticking to the method I created for trying to objectively pick the bars for the bracket, even if the voting on the matchups themselves is entirely subjective.

We returned to Au Cheval to find an hour and a half wait time, but ended up seated almost immediately. One major perk to grabbing some of those tasty brews at Haymarket after putting our names down. And luckily for my cause we were seated at the bar.

The cocktail menu was small, but well crafted, and everyone enjoyed their selection of beverages. I had the Horse’s Neck, and it was delicious. I also tried Mimsi’s Old Fashioned, which was also delicious. Despite being a restaurant I feel like these drinks definitely made Au Cheval well suited to put up a fight in the Bar Bracket.

As for the food. It. Was. Delicious. I really wish I had wrote this part sooner so I could give Au Cheval more honors in this department, but all I’ll leave you with is the knowledge that this little steak-looking things are slices of bacon (or bacons, as us cultured folks say):

 

Now, despite everyone enjoying Au Cheval, 100% of the group thought that The Happy Village would dominate it just by being an actual bar bar.

It didn’t.

I may have mentioned that it sucked.

Au Cheval won this matchup 4-0 and I’m excited to go back, but still have concerns about how it will face up against an actual bar that doesn’t suck.

As for the rest of the night, we left Happy Village and checked out the nearby Club Foot. This was Club Foot’s last night open to the general public (and hence my opportunity to toss in a Final Countdown reference.)

Club Foot was a blast for a plethora of reasons, and it’s sad to know that it’s gone while Happy Village stands.

Other adventures of the night include finding an actual “Shit Fountain,” Shit Stain earning the name Shit Stain at a hotel later in the night, several interesting Lyft rides, a trip to Fado’s in River North, and I think some tacos and horchata (yes, they do make a ‘chata without rum in it).

I will spare you my drawn out stories about these adventures partially because they have faded from my memory due to time and alcohol, but also because I suck at telling them.

Right now my employment is up in the air which might slow down the bracket, but hopefully I won’t go another 4 months without posting again.

Until then, I guess you can stop worrying about a bracket for the best bar in Chicago and just focus on the real bracket.