Travel

Chad and Trixies?

Halsted Pub Crawl

In many ways Halsted Street on the North Side of Chicago is one trendy north/south artery. On its northern edge, Halsted Street is known as "Boys Town" in Lakeview/Wrigleyville. While Halsted Street in this area is considered the heart of Chicago's gay community (the street is used for the Gay Pride Parade), there are great restaurants, shops and bars that appeal to just about everyone. Further south, Halsted cuts through what is arguably Chicago "chicest" neighborhood, Lincoln Park.

Lincoln Park for many years was a neighborhood in shambles. But by the late 1970s/early 1980s the neighborhood got on the gentrification fast track (and is Chicago's number 1 symbol for gentrification). Median home sales topped 1 million dollars in 2005; so the transformation is complete nearly 25 years later. Lincoln Park has a lot of things going for it: proximity to the lake, a world class conservatory, a quaint and beautiful zoo, a huge inner city park, many bustling neighborhood centers with shops, bars and restaurants and of course, prime real estate development.

This may be one of those compromise crawls with the Schpoo contingent of the Hogs. The Halsted crawl is probably "touristy" enough while still having its roots firmly entrenched in a Chicago neighborhood. While we probably will run into our fair share of Chad and Trixie's and plenty of other 20 something's to keep the lecher in us all alive, it's nice to know we can still walk into a local pub for a beer and the ballgame.. Luckily tourist traps like "The Mix" only open after 5pm, so hopefully we're sufficiently blotto by then to avoid it.

Our Pub Crawl here takes us down the main north/south drag of Lincoln Park, the aforementioned Halsted Street. We'll start north near Diversey Parkway and work our way south toward Fullerton Avenue near where DePaul University resides.

Our first stop is Union Tavern (2858 N. Halsted). During school season, this bar gets packed with college kids. Their all you can eat/drink special for 10 bucks on Friday nights sure packs them in. Good luck getting any food though as the kids come in right when the festivities start at 6pm and devour it up like meat in a piranha tank. When the special is over at 9pm, the food is a distant memory. However, when we hit the joint in the middle of summer on a Saturday afternoon, the pace is lot more laid back. Heck, there's even a shaggy dog sitting on the floor. Great beer garden here as well. Not too many big screen TVs, but the waitresses here are very easy on the eyes.

Harrigan's Pub (2816 N. Halsted) is another one of those green sign/gold lettering Irish bars or pubs that seems to have cropped up all around the city. However, Harrigan's has been here for quite awhile. One look at that bar will tell you that this place has been around for quite awhile. In fact Harrigans has been around for over two decades, so it's no Johnny Cum Lately. Harrigans is also a Cub friendly bar, so we are sure to catch a few pitches of the Cub-Cardinal tilt whilst in the joint. It's worth noting I guess that Harrigan's is dubbed the "friendliest bar on Halsted Street".

We'll keep the Irish pub vibe going as we head down Halsted and then duck down Diversey Parkway to Durkin's Tavern. (810 W Diversey). Supposedly Durkins owns Chicago's oldest continuous beer license. It's also a Purdue Boilermaker bar, so if you're ever in Chicago and have a hankering on rubbing elbows from alumni from West Lafayette, Indiana, this is the place. Durkins has over 40 TVs and plenty of beer. Beer and TVs. What else does a bar really need?

Trinity Bar (2721 N. Halsted) just south of Diversey offers three levels of "drinking madness". They also boast that they'll have your favorite team on TV somewhere in the bar, so that's another draw to the place.  They usually have 1.50 Miller Lite specials, so Philster can get his fill of Piss Beer and they have 2 dollar Corona specials so Schpoo can stuff another piece of citrus down the neck of a perfectly good beer (ok, we can forgive the Corona stuffing). The Hidden Shamrock (2723 N. Halsted) is nearby if we still haven't got our Irish Pub fix satisfied.

alive one (2683 N. Halsted) is probably the most unique and hence one of the best bars we'll come across in Lincoln Park. In fact this bar is more Wicker Park than Lincoln Park. One of alive one's big drawing cards is that it has arguably one of the most eclectic juke boxes in the entire city consisting of live recordings and bootlegs of a wide array of artists including Derek and the Dominoes, Jane's Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins, The Velvet Underground, Allman Brothers and the list goes on.

Victory Liquors (2610 N. Halsted) used to be known as the Corner Pocket. With three bars and 29 High Def plasmas strewn about the place, this place is right up our alley. A great place to throw back some beers while we catch the game. It's also a Notre Dame bar, so don't expect anyone from Durkin's here anytime soon.

Burwood Tap (724 W Wrightwood) is right around the corner a half block east of Halsted. I've been to Burwood many years ago and remember the place to be a pretty crowded hopping place. It's doubtful that'd be like this on a Saturday afternoon. The Burwood Tap has been around for over 70 years which puts it at near the time that Prohibition was repealed! Schpoo and I watched the Bulls win their first championship back in 1991 at this pub. It was a good time.

Kingston Mines, BLUES and Goodbar are all further down Halsted, but don't open until later in the evening. By then, our tour of the Lincoln Park Pub scene will be complete.

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