The Oh-God-Summer-Is-Over Patio List

Oh God! Summer is almost over! Where did it go? We never went camping, fishing, tubing or anything fun! All we did was worked and sat around in our air conditioned apartments re-watching Quantum Leap (did you know that they have like five seasons on Netflix?)!

Fear not, dear readers. Summer has not quite yet escaped our grasp, but it slips, like sand through the hourglass, through our tightly clenched little fingers. In an attempt to prolong summer’s glory I have been eating outdoors whenever possible. Here are my favorite places for outdoor chow time.

Top Outdoor Patios (Food)
Target Field
What would summer be without baseball? Hotdogs, beer, peanuts and crackerjacks. When the Twinnies are on a winning streak at Target Field you’d be hard pressed to find a better spot to grab a dog and a brew and watch the action. Good people watching, good baseball and stadium food, if the price tag for admission weren’t so high I’d be there every night!

Grumpy’s Downtown
My favorite spot to hit after the game for a drink and some company, Grumpy’s Downtown sports a sizeable patio, a great Greasy Spoon menu served til 11pm and appetizers until 1am in case of extra innings. Also a great place to drink beer before a day game and feel right at home with everyone else who is drinking at noon on a Wednesday!

Common Roots
One of the most charming patios on the list, Common Roots boasts an ever changing menu of locally grown delights, many of which are harvested from a garden in the back yard. With a couple local brews on tap as well as fresh brewed Peace Coffee all day, Common Roots is one of my favorite places to grab lunch or dinner in Uptown.

Victor’s 1959 Revolutionary Café
Viva Cuba! Although Cuba is far, far away, Victor’s is a great place to catch a few rays and pretend that it’s not going to be negative twenty degrees in a few short months. Whenever I can rouse myself early enough (read: when I end up passing out somewhere in Uptown) I like to catch Victor’s early morning happy hour 8-10:30AM on weekdays and grab myself a mimosa and some yucca fries out on their cozy little patio.

Bryant Lake Bowl
Whenever I find myself in Uptown I quite frequently end up at the BLB. Happy hour apps are a must (mock duck spring rolls, mmmm) and the beer selection is unparalleled in that part of town. Although a new law requires you to actually be sitting down while you drink your beer on one of the narrowest patios I’ve ever seen, BLB’s outdoor seating is some of the best people watching in town. Watch hipster moms try to wrangle fixed gear strollers down Lake street and see how many prostitutes they have to avoid! Ten points!

Barrio/Local
Squeezed in right next to eachother on Nicollet Mall, the patios at Barrio and the Local are no-brainers for this list. The Local’s patio is always hopping yet one seems to always be able to find a seat. Barrio’s shoulder-to-shoulder vibe gives the impression of knocking back tequilas in a cramped bar in Oaxaca. Small plates at both places are the way to go. Try the chicken shots at the Local and the Beef Tenderloin Anticuchos at Barrio while you watch the suits scurry home.

Psycho Suzi’s
In my neck of the woods when you think “food” and you think “patio” one name springs to mind, “Psycho Suzi’s.” With a big ol’ fenced in patio, drinks in tiki mugs and a pizza menu as long as Johnny the Shark’s rap sheet, this kitschy, rockabilly themed joint has a lot going for it in the outdoors department. Bonus points for attractive, tattooed staff and clientele.

Bulldog NE
Late night happy hours, tater tots and truffle oil, oh my! Northeast’s premier burger joint has a decent sized patio, cheap appetizers at night and just so happens to be on my way home. Do I spend a lot of time on this patio? You betcha! Grab a Tilburg on tap and sit yourself down with a basket of tots and try to imagine winter, I dare you.

Pracna/Vic’s
Probably the fanciest and/or schmantziest patio on the list, Pracna affords a great view of the Mississippi and her bridges. Bring a date and a full wallet and you just might get lucky, son. If Pracna’s patio is full slip over to Vic’s just down the block and catch a great deal on some wine.

Brasa
Voted number one by my readers and friends, Brasa may not have the best view, but they arguably have the best food. If you’re not hip to the Brasa vibe it’s all South American home cookin’. The patio fills up quick but the garage door windows open up and even if you’re sitting inside you’re basically outside. The cornbread is a must, but really, you can’t go wrong with that menu.

Mill City Café
Probably the most idyllic patio on the list, the Mill City Café is tucked away up here in Nordeast in the California building. It’s a great place to take a date or just to rub elbows with the obscure and artsy but don’t show up too late as MCC is only open for breakfast and lunch. Good food, great ambiance and Mill City holds the distinction of being the only two-tiered patio on the list! Yeah!

Honorable Mention:
Uptown Bar
You will be missed, old friend. When I lived on the south side of town the Uptown Bar was my stomping ground. You can’t beat big ass bloody marys, beautiful people and crazy bums mingling in the street and a hamburger that would make your arteries slam shut in fear. Hopefully the New Uptown Bar can hold on to some of that magic for us.

Iron City Eats: Primanti Brothers, Pittsburgh, PA

I woke up feeling great on Thursday morning. The birds were chirping, sun was shining and far off in the distance, a lone jackhammer hummed into the concrete. I was in Steven’s Point, Wisconsin, more specifically on the front porch of a house, in an inflatable rubber raft.

It was surprisingly comfortable.

Several hours later myself and the boys from Battlefields (in my opinion the best doom/prog metal in the Midwest, hands down) arrived in Pittsburgh, sans inflatable raft.

I’d been in Pittsburgh once before, although my only food related experience was witnessing an argument in front of a place called “Tony’s Pizza” in which a man dressed in stereotypical pizza-cook garb (I’m assuming this was Tony, although I have no proof) berated a guy with a long ponytail, bedecked from head to toe in Pittsburgh Steelers paraphernalia.

This time, however, I arrived with my appetite in tact. We leisurely strolled down Penn Avenue past block upon block of empty warehouses until suddenly we came upon a big neon sign reading: “Primanti Brothers”.

We were completely unprepared for the sandwiches we were about to receive. An old, grumpy Pittsburgher in a paper hat appeared, inquiring lackadaisically if we wanted a “sammidge”* before sloughing off to bring us some bottles of Iron City lager. Though tempted by the “Colossal Fish” sandwich and their “#2 Seller” the cheese steak sandwich**, I ordered the capicola. I have never been more pleased with a decision not to order a sandwich with “colossal” in the name.

Stacked high with big slices of meat, a pile of coleslaw and an armload of homemade fries, my sandwich bore a closer resemblance to a freight car from Pittsburgh’s stockyards than to a sandwich. It was heavenly.

Primanti Brothers began serving up sandwiches for iron workers with powerful appetites during the Depression and have continued their tradition of quick and hearty meals ever since. If you’re ever in Pittsburgh, I recommend you get yez down to Primanti and get yez a sammidge an’at.



*I discovered, through my research, that “Pittsburghese” is an actual linguistic dialect with its very own wikipedia page.

**I wondered aloud what the #1 seller was at Primanti Bros., our waiter hollered from across the room, “Iron City Beer!”

Allons Enfants de la Patrie: La Jour De Gloire in the land of 10,000 Lakes

*VS.



Those of you who know me can attest to my crushing if not frequently thoroughly embarrassing Francophilia. I have drunk cheap wine on the Champ de Mars, a Gaulois lit between my lips, "Du Côté de Chez Swann" under my arm, swinging a baguette and leering heartily from behind a lusty moustache. Stripy shirt and flatulent bulldog and all.

So what's a pauvre grenouille like myself supposed to do stranded in the middle of America when the quatorze juillet arrives?

Do I make a replica guillotine, re-enacting my own Terreur on some watermelons dressed like Marie-Antoinette? Or perhaps I should put some Piaf on the stereo and quote loudly from Rousseau's "Contrat Social"?

Nay, gentle reader, as I write this I am listening to "The Stroke" by Billy Squier, eating a mediocre bacon cheeseburger, drinking Budweiser and watching the MLB Allstar game at a bar which seemingly exists for no other reason than it happens to reside at the intersection of two county highways.

Vacantly staring from the northeast corner of the intersection of Becker County highways 6 and 11 "The Pit" occupies a bizarre section of highway which is pretty damn close to the middle of nowhere (the Pit claims to be in Audobon, Minnesota which takes up about 45 seconds of your time on highway 10 on the way to Detroit Lakes, although it is a good four miles from the Audobon, Minnesota I know with a lot of blank space in between) and also boasts two houses and, you guessed it, a church.

The Pit is not a great bar. Hell, it is not even a good bar, but it has beer and baseball, and sometimes that's enough...

Well, not really, however the bar that I wasgoing to go to was struck by lightning this afternoon and none of its TVs were working when the game started.

So the Pit may not bee a great bar. Hell, it's not even a good bar. But it has beer, burgers, baseball and happened to not get struck by lightning on Bastille Day and that's what I call the four Bs of good livin on a Tuesday afternoon.

Aux Armes Et Cetera mes enfants!


*Many thanks to my friend Benjamin Moses Smith for the gracious use of his visage as well as the other dude whose name I forget.

Apologia

Hey Friends,

Sorry I've been conspicuously absent from VA for a while. Busy, busy, busy! I am going to be doing a set of reviews coming up in the next week though! So keep your eyes peeled and your hands on the wheel!

Cheers,
Bryce

It's Always 11:45 PM in Chicago: The Skylark

Skylark Bartender Nick who not only looks as though he should work in a boxing gym in the 40s, but also recently played one on stage. Nice moustache, Nick.

If ever there was a bar that made me want to spiral off into a Bukowskian barfly bender, slouched in the corner writing poems about flies, making derogatory comments about women and attractive people and drinking cheap whiskey, the Skylark is it. It’s not that the Skylark is covered in dirt and grime, or packed with bar sluts and Johnny Ginblossoms, it’s simply the atmosphere. It's always 11:45pm in the Skylark. Were Chicago a city that still allowed smoking, the Skylark would be in a perpetual fog of nostalgic cigarette smoke. However, appearances can be deceiving as, hidden behind the half burned out 10 watt lamps and cracked linoleum floor is an excellent, always changing selection of beers and one of the best kitchens in Chicago’s shabby-chic hip-kid haven, the Pilsen neighborhood.

While there is a set menu at the Skylark including some of the best burgers the south side of Chicago has to offer, the real treat is their ever changing specials menu which runs the gamut between Moroccan lamb stew, ahi tuna steaks and my personal favorite, t-bone steak.

As a self proclaimed master of the grill, it has been my mission, nay, obsession to perfect the t-bone and, while I have gotten rather good at it, there is no substitute for the Skylark’s t-bone. Juicy, with just the right amount of fat to keep the flavor in-tact, not too much salt and just enough pepper, this steak is like the cover of “Kings of Metal” by Manowar, standing atop all its competitors, sword in hand, lightning crashing down. Epic.

While the kitchen is a pleasant surprise, the integral function of the Skylark is a dive bar. Dark, cavernous booths yawn along the wall as you enter, a few dim lamps and some neon from behind the bar provide the only illumination. Towards the back of the bar, a lonely pinball machine stares down a photobooth. During the day you can usually find some shabby scholar reading Giles Deleuze through precariously perched bifocals as he takes down his third pint.

At night, Pilsen’s good looking art kid population shows up. James Brown and Wilson Pickett go on the record player (yes this bar has a record player, no juke box, just a record player) and tables get cleared for dancing, most of which consists of that old hipster classic: “slightly swaying while spilling PBR all over the floor.”

Perhaps one of the best things about the Skylark is something it lacks, rather than something it has. No televisions blare in any of the Lark’s darkened corners, one feels as if one might have stepped through time back to an era when people went to bars to have conversations, or a quiet drink, without being distracted by the outside world. Also conspicuously absent from the Skylark is the air of pretension which generally accompanies dives where good food meets the art set. The bartenders are laid back but efficient, the patrons, from what I have noticed, seem to simply mind their own business instead of trying to prove something about their wardrobe to the rest of the bar and the mood is always one of affable drunkenness.

The Lark is as close as I’ve come to finding a Gold Standard for dive bars. And believe you me, I’ve seen a lot. From the food to the booze to the crowd to the music, the Lark has got it figured out on all fronts.


NAME OF BAR
The Skylark
2149 South Halsted
Chicago, IL

BEER
Tap: PBR plus a rotating selection of good stuff (Lagunitas specials, Great Lakes, etc.)
Bottle: Seems decent.

FOOD
One of the best dive kitchens I’ve ever seen. Moroccan lamb stew, great burgers and, of course, T-Bones.

ENTERTAINMENT
TVs: None!
Bar Games: Pinball, Photobooth

CLIENTELE
Attractive art kids, old men reading books, lots of ties.

MUSIC
Jukebox: No jukebox, just a record player and a bunch of bartenders with taste.
Live: Apparently there is live jazz on Saturdays, I have yet to verify this, though, perhaps I will have to make another trip.

DÉCOR
Bukowskian Chicago Dive

BANG FOR YR BUCK
Seems pretty decent, PBR’s cheap, generally have beer specials, food is about average for Chicago.

OVERALL RATING
9.5

CLOSING THOUGHTS
The Lark is, as I mentioned before, one of my new favorite bars in the world. Dark and drunk and fun. Check it out in the afternoon for a quiet pint or at night for the crowd.

Charleston, SC: AC's Bar: The Champagne of Beers of Bars

Charleston has a really big bridge. You can see it from miles away. It looks like something out of a science fiction movie, suspended by huge cables in a large arc. Throughout the 16 or so hours I spent in Charleston, I was to become intimately familiar with this bridge.

You see, if you miss the turn for Bay Street off of Highway 17 in Charleston you are damned, damned I say, to cross that bridge, make a u-turn and try it again. However, one thing I learned about the Carolinas is that they only like to mark exits from one side, not the other.

I drove over this bridge a grand total of 9 times.

Not in a row, obviously (I am slightly more navigationally capable than that) but throughout the day I either missed the Bay Street exit or was attempting to get somewhere else and ended up on the bridge 9 times.

Impressive, I know.

During my time in Charleston I came across a little hole-in-the-wall called AC’s Bar (467 King Street, Charleston, SC for those of you keeping score at home). From the outside, one would be hard-pressed to choose AC’s over any of the other bars in the neighborhood. Just a small neon sign reading AC’s and a nondescript awning adorn the façade and one imagines that the patrons like that just fine. Comprised mostly of tattooed rockers, bike messengers, the denizens of AC’s appeared to enjoy their own Private Idaho. And who wouldn’t? A nicely cluttered bar area gives AC’s that lived in feel, scruffy and unpretentious.

$2 PBRs and a damn good burger for roughly $5 make this place easy on the pocketbook as well. I had a straight up cheeseburger which was expertly cooked (not too done, not too raw, with almost a slight char on the outside, delicious).

However, the most memorable thing for me was that the bartender had, apparently, rifled through my high-school record collection and played a TON of music I hadn’t heard in eons. Right when I showed up, in fact, he played Alkaline Trio’s “Goddammit!” record in its entirety. By the time I decided to leave ACs my brain was so addled by PBR and Chicago-style pop-punk I was getting ready to seek out a drummer and write some 2 minute hookfests about drinking cheap beer and sitting on couches, all soaring octave lines and machinegun drum fills. However, I soon put the kybosh on that notion as I continued my journey across that damn bridge…



AC’S BAR
467 King St.
Charleston, SC

BEER
Tap: A few locals and some crummy domestics.
Bottle: Selection seemed pretty good, AC’s has their “Beer of the Month” where you get a pretty damn good bottle for $2.25 . This month it is Harp.

They also have their whole booze selection written on the mirrors over the bar including a section which says, simply, “Champagne: Miller High Life - $2”

FOOD
Excellent burgers, pretty standard bar fare. Apparently they also have the best Philly Cheese Steak south of the Mason/Dixon.

ENTERTAINMENT
TVs: A few on which baseball and America’s Funniest Home Videos bid for my attention.
Bar Games: Pool, touch screen.

CLIENTELE
Rockers, hipsters, bike messengers, etc.

MUSIC
Jukebox: Not that I could see. An iPod that, apparently, can look into my past lives at the bar, though.
Live: There appeared to be a stage at the front of the bar, although there weren’t any fliers up for shows.

DÉCOR
Cheers meets your Uncle’s basement


BANG FOR YR BUCK
Pretty damn good. 5 Buck Burgers and 2 Dollar PBRS. I got out of there for 9 bucks plus tip.

OVERALL RATING
8.5

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Did I give this bar a higher rating because it inadvertently brought me back to my childhood? Maybe. Should you still check it out if you are looking for something to do in Charleston? Definitely.

Springfield, IL: You Can Take Our Land, But You Can Never Take Our Freedom Sandwich

One of the highpoints of travel has to be eating local specialties. Any time I am at a bar or restaurant I make sure to ask if they have some ridiculous food or drink item that is their specialty. Generally if you find a local to take you out they will automatically take you to the restaurant that makes shots in a flaming coconut or has a scale model of the Eiffel tower made out of French fries and cheese.

Or a giant pile of heart attack.

Springfield, IL is home to many wonders. The capital of the great state of Illinois cuts an imposing figure in the skyline which appeared, to Jack and me as we were driving in to the city, to be a giant hand flipping us the bird. Ahh southern Illinois.

Springfield, for some time, was also home to one of the most amazing people I know, Ms Abby Rae Lacombe who is responsible, in some fashion, for the excellent Front Porch Sitters blog and is also a dear, dear friend of mine. Abby, being an ex-Springfieldian, joined us for our show in Springfield and, consequently, introduced me to a sandwich which may, some day, be directly related to me necessitating open heart surgery.

I use the term sandwich very, very loosely. The Horseshoe, which is so famous it has its own Wikipedia page is more of a pile of delicious heart-attack on some Texas toast. The ingredients, from what I can remember are: one huge slab of Texas toast topped by a couple of hamburger patties, covered in French fries and then smothered in some kind of white cheese sauce. There were also some onions in there, I believe. In any case it is an imposing heap of bar food which even I, who fears no burger, could not finish in one sitting.

The best Horseshoe (which, according to Wikipedia, is also known as the “freedom sandwich”) as per Ms Lacombe, is to be found at D’Arcy’s Pint. A relatively unremarkable bar, save for the heaping piles of cardiac arrest they serve on a regular basis, I will blame D’Arcy’s Pint on my death bed as my arteries finally give up the ghost, shaking my fist in futile rage at the Horseshoe for being so damn delicious.

(I should mention that I recently found this website where the Horseshoe should definitely hold a place of distinction if it does not already.)