Author Archives: Ben

Jeff’s Restaurant and Bar | Oak Creek, WI

By Ben | Published: January 5, 2009
To my mind the only thing better than a townie bar is a ‘Sconie bar, and three things Wisconsinites love are the Packers, drinking and eating. Jeff’s takes care of all three. We had arrived at my in-laws a few days before Christmas, and before I even had my shoes off my wife’s stepdad asked [...]
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Club Brady | Milwaukee, WI

By Ben | Published: January 5, 2009
My wife, her brother and I walked across the street to Club Brady from The Nomad for a number of reasons: the music at The Nomad was so loud we couldn’t talk, there were a number of drunks singing along to the music and dropping bottles, and they had apparently not cleaned up from New [...]
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Upstairs Pub | Bloomington, IN

By Ben | Published: December 11, 2008
The bartender’s surly, which I like. “You open?” I asked the first time I stepped in. It was three in the afternoon and the place was empty. “Door wouldn’t be open if we weren’t,” he answered, not bothering to look at me. The place is big, with darts and pool tables and a great view [...]
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FARMbar | Bloomington, IN

By Ben | Published: December 11, 2008
“Would you like to try my glass of tequila?” asked a drinking buddy. Another offered a glass of vodka with a couple of berries at the bottom. The martini glass full of tequila was in theory a “Green Teani” and the vodka with berries had another too-cute name I can’t remember which alluded to the [...]
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Halligan Bar | Lincoln Park, Chicago

By Ben | Published: December 4, 2008
The memories are a little hazy, but I believe that during my bachelor party bar crawl we had most of this bar singing along to “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” by John Denver. I take that as a positive sign for a bar. Generally, it skews towards the post-college crowd. Good-looking bartenders too, which [...]
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Bluebird | Wicker Park, Chicago

By Ben | Published: December 2, 2008
So, I didn’t actually drink here, but I think I got a pretty good feel for it. We stepped in on a Saturday night and the hostess took a name for our group of five and informed us it’d be a 20 minute wait. We scanned the crowd dressed entirely in shades of black, gray [...]
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Nick’s English Hut | Bloomington, IN

By Ben | Published: December 2, 2008
I kind of love this place. Apparently there’s at least two floors here, but I never seem to get much past the front bar. The bar is tucked in a cramped little spot off to the side when you first enter, you’ll be lucky to sneak between the bar stools and the wall, but if [...]
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Elephant and Castle | The Loop, Chicago

By Ben | Published: November 24, 2008
A concept bar (I didn’t realize this for a long time, the three Chicago locations probably should have tipped me off, but I think that speaks to the quality of the place. I’ll also go out on a limb here and say this review is interchangeable for all three of those, and maybe the rest [...]
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