Downtown Happy Hour

I'm meeting a friend for drinks after work today. We both work in the downtown area (he's near Wacker and Clark; I'm up at the NU campus). My friend will have to catch the Metra to go home, so anywhere around there would be convenient.

Does anyone have any recommendations for happy hour specials for today? or just know of a good bar to go to in the area?

Thanks!

On Clinton St. very near both Union and Ogilvie stations, Dylan's is a pretty good place -- was our watering hole back when I worked around there. Can't say much about specials (it's been a couple of years and I don't want to second-guess) but I always liked the place.

Happy Hour is a tricky phrase in Illinois. By law you can't even advertise or promote a "Happy Hour" unless you're hoping for a visit from the Illinois Liquor Control Commission, with the strong chance of a fine. (It's happened to friends before, no exaggeration. They were fined for the simple fact that the commision took offense to their fliers.)

The state cracked down on the idea of happy hours back in the days when people didn't think much of downing a couple of martinis and then making a drive home. The current law stipulates (among other things) that any special pricing on liquor has to stay consistent for no less than 12 contiguous hours.

That aside, you can still find places that will have food specials around that time period. (And a side effect of the enormous hassle that's involved in being granted a liquor license in this city, is that there's very few bars without some form of kitchen around these days.)

As far as places to go, I've always enjoyed Fado's (despite the fact that it's a chain) on Clark and Grand. The upstairs will probably be full of soccer fans and European ex-pats watching today's game. They might charge a cover to get upstairs. The food's outstanding for bar fare. (I remember speaking to a British friend who was back in the UK for a few months, he was avoiding the fish & chips there - holding out until he could get home and hit Fado.)

Another option is Celtic Crossing's on Chicago & Clark. It's a hole in the wall Irish Pub with Irish barstaff and a fireplace imported from County Clare. Cheap drinks, interesting people, and I'm completely unaware if they have a kitchen or not.

Another option would be Le Bar on Wabash & Chestnut, in the lobby of the Sofitel. Overpriced drinks in a semi-pretentious enviroment, but the people-watching is first rate. If you've washed your hair today and don't have thick black-rimmed glasses, you might not fit in. It's worth hanging out at least once though, just for the crowd.

Well, you don't say which Metra station he departs from. Jak's Tap (more south) and Clark Street Ale House (more north) are two bars with good beer lists near the city center. McCormick and Schmick's reputedly has a nice happy hour menu.

What about Bin 36? They have a long list of wines by the glass, as well as light fare and full dinners. 333 N.Dearborn - although here is a link that should work.

I like The Pepper Canister, on Wells near Illinois St, across the street from SushiSamba Rio. It's an Irish pub, with some wondereful beers on tap that also happens to serve some great food. Last week I enjoyed a bowl of their seafood chowder with a Hoegaarden. Yum...

For my money the best happy hour bar in the loop is Trader Vic's. Big Polynesian Drinks, tasty appetizers, a seventies feel, kitschy goodness!!!

I'd like to know of somewhere (other than Blue Line Club Car) where you can get a big blue drink for $2 off...

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will have to keep them in mind for our next happy hour outing.

We ended up going to Berghoff's b/c one of his co-workers was organizing a happy hour there. Interesting atmosphere/history, but I don't know if I'd go back any time soon. At one point there was only one bartendar taking orders as large groups started to come in...

Root beers were good :) Pretzels were stale.

We had a hell of a time, though, trying to find a place in the loop w/ a TV broadcasting the Cubs game afterwards...

FYI, because the URL in messycook's post above was forcing the entire thread to expand to its width (meaning on some peoples' computers, text would run off the screen), I hid the URL in the message.

It's a good idea whenever you have a lengthy URL to put the link into the text. Just do this (using the square brackets instead of the pointy ones as I will use to demonstrate here):

{url=PASTE YOUR URL HERE} TYPE TEXT WHICH WILL CONTAIN LINK HERE {/url}

Another option for unwieldly URL's is any of the URL shortening services. Off of the top of my head, a few of them are: tinyurl.com, xrl.us, or makeashorterlink.com. Tinyurl even has a plugin for most browsers that'll automatically shorten the url of your current page and copy the shortened url to the clipboard (when using IE 4.0 or higher) with a single click.