The Flat Iron | Wicker Park, Chicago

Graffiti on the walls (or is it street art?), a cavernous feel, patrons with piercings and serious eyeliner, and two pool tables, all behind a discreetly-labeled door that has ‘The Flat Iron’ spelled out in the exact same letters you’d use if you had an aluminum fishing boat in Wisconsin and needed to display your registration number on the bow. I don’t typically feel like a yuppie, but I felt like a yuppie here. Ben ordered boilermakers, perfectly appropriate.

“These are a great way to start the night,” Ben says. Start?  We’d been drinking since before dinner almost six hours earlier.

Couple beers later, Juli and I had taken over the front pool table challenging all comers, including Ben, while Lisa clicked away, taking pictures of the madness, trying to make her camera work without its flash.  Eventually the beer caught up and the pool cue started to travel angles other than straight and true, and our winning streak came to an end.

We left shortly after, and as long as the Marc Jacobs effect is held at bay in Wicker Park, we’ll return to this great dive.