At one point, there are 34 men on our side of the bar and we can’t see a single woman patron, but they are elsewhere at the bar in weird groups seemingly ready to pounce like jackals waiting for the lionesses to finish.
Our waitress arrives kilted, cleavaged. She writes her name on a coaster and introduces herself. I order a beer, Mark goes for whiskey, neat. “On the rocks, with ice?” the waitress asks. No. There’s some explaining to do. It’s kind of loud, which doesn’t help.
The waitress returns with my beer, but there’s a snag with the whiskey. “It’s not in the computer yet,” she explains. “I need to talk to the manager.”
Well, it’s not in the computer yet. Of course. And everybody is new enough to ask the manager instead of charging it as something else. The prices are not different, but inventory is king. She returns triumphantly after a few minutes.
We drink. We look around and count the men on our side of the bar — 34. Their average age? Probably 34 too. There’s one employee whose job it seems is to strut around periodically. It’s weird.
The Tilted Kilt has been described as a Hooter’s knockoff, and in many ways it is. The staff is almost 90% female, though the gents rock the kilts too (theirs are longer). But something is different. Maybe it’s the Catholic-school-girl skirts and the lower lighting, but this place is most definitely a bar, not a chicken wing shack, and by bar, I mean brothel with beer or a bordello with cocktails. That kind of bar.
We’ve had about enough, though I understand why others would linger. Paying is the same tooth-pulling experience as ordering. When we get back outside to the familiarity of the Loop, we breath easy. We’ve confronted the sirens song and eluded it.
Tilted Kilt | The Loop, Chicago
At one point, there are 34 men on our side of the bar and we can’t see a single woman patron, but they are elsewhere at the bar in weird groups seemingly ready to pounce like jackals waiting for the lionesses to finish.
Our waitress arrives kilted, cleavaged. She writes her name on a coaster and introduces herself. I order a beer, Mark goes for whiskey, neat. “On the rocks, with ice?” the waitress asks. No. There’s some explaining to do. It’s kind of loud, which doesn’t help.
The waitress returns with my beer, but there’s a snag with the whiskey. “It’s not in the computer yet,” she explains. “I need to talk to the manager.”
Well, it’s not in the computer yet. Of course. And everybody is new enough to ask the manager instead of charging it as something else. The prices are not different, but inventory is king. She returns triumphantly after a few minutes.
We drink. We look around and count the men on our side of the bar — 34. Their average age? Probably 34 too. There’s one employee whose job it seems is to strut around periodically. It’s weird.
The Tilted Kilt has been described as a Hooter’s knockoff, and in many ways it is. The staff is almost 90% female, though the gents rock the kilts too (theirs are longer). But something is different. Maybe it’s the Catholic-school-girl skirts and the lower lighting, but this place is most definitely a bar, not a chicken wing shack, and by bar, I mean brothel with beer or a bordello with cocktails. That kind of bar.
We’ve had about enough, though I understand why others would linger. Paying is the same tooth-pulling experience as ordering. When we get back outside to the familiarity of the Loop, we breath easy. We’ve confronted the sirens song and eluded it.