I
could tell I was not going to like the Old Town Pour House from the second I
walked in the building. I’m not much of
a sports bar enthusiast, and as soon as I passed through the revolving door I
was immediately presented with no less than twenty flat screen televisions
playing every sport that cable television had to offer that evening. My friends and I showed the bouncer our IDs,
and we were quickly seated at one of four long “community” tables that make up
the majority of the main floor seating.
This puts us literally elbow-to-elbow with the couple next to us. I’m really not a big fan of this type of
seating arrangement. I grabbed the menu
to search for my first pint, and was pleased to find it fairly well organized
with the beers sorted by style. I
settled upon Surly Bender, and then screamed my order to our waitress. Screaming is apparently the only way to
verbally communicate at the Pour House because the music turned up so loud that
you can’t hear anything else. I have
literally been to concerts that were quieter than this bar. I hate that.
After the first was ordered, my buddies and I started to fight against
the noise in hopes of assembling a conversation.
After
about a half hour of struggling through a fragmented dialog, 75% of the
televisions switch over the Thursday Night Football. I know that America loves its football, but I
found it very odd that the bar decided to demote the Cubs game to two of the twenty
or so TVs. The football game didn’t even
feature a team that was based within a thousand miles of Chicago. I know the Cubbies lost hope of a playoff
spot a couple months ago, but are the locals no longer interested supporting
their team? I guess.
It’s
a shame that I was so turned off by the place because it really is a beautiful
bar. The entire interior is covered with
deeply stained wood. The ceiling and
walls are covered with this amazing wood paneling, and the hardwood floor is
laid out in a lovely fishbone pattern.
There are about twenty five stools at the bar and a handful of small
tables here and there. On the far end of
the restaurant is a wooden staircase that leads up to a few more tables (and
even more televisions). I didn’t get a
chance to check it out, but I think there may be another small bar up there
too. The downstairs flooring switches to
a black and white tile, but retains the stained wooden walls. The bathrooms are down there, as is another
little bar. All in all it’s a very
elegant looking establishment that should be the perfect environment for
libations.
The
food was fine. We ordered three
appetizers to share and nothing was left in the end. The tater tots appeared to be made in-house,
the fried pickles were nice and thick, and the fried cheese curds were actually
pretty spectacular. Despite the
aforementioned shortcomings, I will allow that the Pour House seems to have
perfected the art of deep frying things.
In
my eyes, the Old Town Pour House is more or less a “classier” (and more
expensive) Buffalo Wild Wings. It’s not
a good place to meet up with friends because you can’t hear them, and, if
you’re unlucky enough to get stuck at the long tables, you’re forced to make
new friends because you’re essentially sitting on your neighbor’s lap. The food was pretty good, but I can get good
food at a thousand different places in Chicago.
They’ve got a lot of draft handles, but honestly only a few of them were
interesting. Most of it was stuff I
could get easily back home. I guess
there were a lot of pretty women to look at, but they were outnumbered pretty
close to ten-to-one by guys with shirts that are one size too small. So in the end, I guess I’m happy to have
checked the Old Town Pour House off my to-do list, but I don’t expect that I’ll
ever return.
1419
N Wells St.
Chicago,
IL 60610
312-477-2800
-Matt
