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Patio /Beer Gardens

Recommended Patio /Beer Gardens

  • Bangers & Lace
    Bar/Lounge
    Bangers & Lace Wicker Park/Bucktown
    Bangers & Lace evokes a traditional hunting lodge, complete with a deer head on the wall and other stuffed game animals scattered about. It's a classy place, though, with lace curtains on the tall windows and 32 taps topped by »
  • Big Star
    Bar/Lounge
    Big Star Wicker Park/Bucktown
    No matter the time of day, a wait is practically guaranteed at this U-shaped bar manned by bartenders who spin classic country and honky-tonk on vinyl. Here are well-engineered cocktails alongside cheap domestic beers, and if you can't decide between »
  • Fountainhead
    Bar/Lounge
    Fountainhead Ravenswood  4
    I'm writing about Fountainhead as a bar—I've yet to try the food, though the menu certainly looks tempting (if perhaps a tad spendy). I come here for the beer: on most nights you can choose from a fine selection of »
  • Happy Village
    Classic Bar
    Happy Village Ukrainian Village/East Village
    With board games and a Ping-Pong room, this is a place where you could easily pass a few hours reconnecting with your childhood, and maybe for this reason it attracts a younger crowd than some of the other neighborhood institutions. »
  • Hopleaf
    Bar/Lounge
    Hopleaf Andersonville  7
    Ever since I moved here in 1996, Hopleaf has been my favorite beer bar in Chicago. It’s most famous for its fetishistic selection of Belgian beers—more than a third of the two downstairs bars' 64 taps on any given day, »
  • Hungry Brain
    Classic Bar
    Hungry Brain Roscoe Village  5
    Hungry Brain is one of the coziest spots in Chicago. You've probably passed this small bar over and over and never realized it was there. Its interior is comfortable and lit with the glow of beer signs and Christmas lights. »
  • Jackhammer
    Music venue
    Jackhammer Rogers Park/West Rogers Park
    Some assholes are trying to rebrand the corner of Devon and Ashland "RogersEdge," but bars like the Jackhammer should help keep gentrification at bay. Unlike neighbor Touche, though, the 'Hammer's no seedy dive. As a local alternative to the Boystown »
  • Kaiser Tiger
    Bar/Lounge
    Kaiser Tiger Near West Side
    This beer, bacon, and sausage emporium is not as refined or as interesting as its Randolph Row neighbors. And it’s definitely not as popular, at least judging from the number of empty seats on a recent Friday night in the »
  • Long Room
    Music venue
    Long Room Lakeview
    As the name would indicate, the Long Room is a shotgun-style bar, with tables along the facing wall allowing a thin walkway to a back room with a couple more tables and a few booths. It's always been a welcoming »
  • Longman & Eagle
    Bar/Lounge
    Longman & Eagle Logan Square
    At Longman & Eagle the throngs are as apt to tie up the tables early Monday evening as they are late Friday night. Good thing there's a craft cocktail list delectable (and affordable) enough to make it worth sampling just »
  • Maria's Packaged Goods & Community Bar
    Bar/Lounge
    Maria's Packaged Goods & Community Bar Bridgeport  1
    In August 2010 arts raconteur Ed Marszewski transformed his mother's packaged-goods bar into one of the city's premier watering holes for international craft beers and whiskeys. The bar offers more than 450 brews in bottles and on tap, along with »
  • The Matchbox
    Corner Tap
    The Matchbox River West
    To say that the Matchbox is cozy would be an understatement. Wedge-shaped, it's 15 feet across at its widest point and about three and a half feet at its narrowest. It can be tricky to squeeze past seated patrons to »
  • Montrose Saloon
    Bar/Lounge
    Montrose Saloon Albany Park
    An chummy, unprepossessing Old Style bar with a number of diversions to help evaluate your ability to drive home: board games, darts, pool, and a large beer garden where you can throw horseshoes and bags, and grill your own grub. »
  • Parson's Chicken & Fish
    American
    Parson's Chicken & Fish Logan Square
    Conceptually, Parson's has as much if not more in common with Big Star as it does with a typical Harold's Chicken Shack. It has a great big patio (it's an ice rink in the winter), servicing drinkers with brisk, boozy »
  • Roof
    Patio /Beer Garden
    Roof Loop
    Crowds line up to get onto the glass-walled patio of Roof, the industrial-sleek black-and-gray lounge on the 27th floor of the Wit Hotel. Two tips: arrive around opening time, and check out "the hangover," a table for eight on a »
  • Rootstock Wine & Beer Bar
    Wine Bar
    Rootstock Wine & Beer Bar Humboldt Park
    Dark and comfy, with an outdoor patio that in the warmer months brightens an otherwise stark intersection, this is a fine spot to take a sip or two from an intriguing list of small-batch beverages, including a passel of interesting »
  • Sportsman's Club
    Craft Cocktails
    Sportsman's Club Humboldt Park
    Heisler Hospitality's revamp of an old Polish dive, featuring craft beers and "spirit-forward" cocktails from barmen Wade McElroy (Trenchermen, Barrelhouse Flat) and Jeff Donahue (Barrelhouse Flat, the Aviary). Sporting the occasional dead animal head, the bar is cash only, with »
  • Vincent
    European
    Vincent Andersonville
    Originally Dutch-inspired, this pleasant European-style bistro and bar features a farm-to-table menu including moules frites and house-made charcuterie. There are a dozen gins and genevers, along with craft beers and craft cocktails, and the patio is dog friendly. —Kate Schmidt
  • Whistler
    Music venue
    Whistler Logan Square
    Part storefront art installation, part eclectic music venue (and record label), mostly craft-cocktail mecca, the Whistler is a Chicago destination, forget about neighborhood spot. Just don’t let the Friday- and Saturday-night lines deter you from visiting at more reasonable hours. »
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