Joe’s Bar
This venue might as well be the country capital of the city. Graced by the likes of Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert, Dierks Bentley, Chris Cagle, Corey Smith and Chris Young, Joe’s Bar on Weed Street is the place to see country acts perform, not to mention the likes of Snoop Dogg from time to time. What’s more American than country music? Football. The 20,000 square foot space has more than 110 plasma TVs and high-definition projector screens synced to fourteen satellites to show every game at the same time. But if your ideal Friday night is anything like the one Zac Brown Band has in mind, then Joe’s Bar is the place to wear a pair of jeans that fit just right and grab a cold beer with your friends.

Joe’s Bar, 940 West Weed, (312)337-3486, joesbar.com

Best of Chicago 2012

The North Avenue Bridge is not especially appealing to pedestrians, especially after dark. Walking westward at night, you’ll find your pace picking up as warehouses and solitude become the foreboding norm. But smack dab in the middle of that bridge—surprise!—turn to your southward side and you’ll discover a gorgeous vantage of the city, free of lake and beach; only manmade ingenuity so worthy of pause. There are, of course, plenteous picturesque views of the skyline all over the place, but none whose surrounding bleakness so meaningfully contrasts with that shining city on a great lake.

The North Avenue Bridge, 1200 West North Avenue

Best of Chicago 2012

Neo
Yes, we’re sure that, at that bar, you do dance like you’re in your own living room, with just a few of your close friends; unabashed, without embarrassment. But at Neo, when we go to Neo, we’re all dancing like we’re in our showers. And no one’s home, no one at all. It’s the kind of dancing you see from Buffalo Bill, in “Silence of the Lambs,” when he’s fondling his ambiguous genitalia, blasting Q Lazzarus’ “Goodbye Horses.” Yes, they play that song there, all the time, basically every Thursday night, which is New Wave night. One time, our friend made out with a girl, aggressively, during that song. No, he didn’t know her. No, neither of them were drunk. No, they didn’t speak after that night. No, it was not obscene, it was actually one of the more pure and beautiful things we’ve experienced in years, this making out. They were “dorks,” just two dorks, used to being dorks and used to feeling like they can only express themselves and their love for the weird retro things they somehow, truly—truly and deeply—very much love; they were used to being only able to express these things in the shower. No, our friend does not make out with strangers anywhere else, nowhere else, ever, in the whole world—to our knowledge, this is the one-and-only time this has happened. Same for her, if we had to guess. Nearby there were two grown-ass men; one was overweight and bald. Read the rest of this entry »

Goose Island
Goose Island brewmaster Jared Rouben has crafted the best sour beers this side of Berlin. That’s where the centuries-old flavor originated when medieval brewers experimented with wild yeasts. But Rouben likes the taste of sour brews, which he says plays nicely with just about any food, so he takes the necessary, costly steps to craft them. The beer must be aged in wood barrels, and the yeast, because it can easily contaminate other yeasts, requires special handling. Goose Island’s “Juliet,” is a Belgian-style sour ale aged with blackberries in Cabernet barrels. Prosit!

Goose Island Brewpub, 1800 North Clybourn, (312)915-0071; 3535 North Clark, (773)832-9040, gooseisland.com

Best of Chicago 2012

Whole Foods
We really love Green Grocer, Provenance, City Provisions and even still have a soft spot for the waning Fox & Obel, but none of those spots is a true one stop shop for produce, meat and local products like this theme-park/grocery. Oh, yeah, and there’s a bar if you find grocery shopping stressful.

Whole Foods, 1550 North Kingsbury, (312)587-0648, wholefoodsmarket.com

Audience choice: Trader Joe’s, 44 East Ontario and multiple locations, (312)951-6369, traderjoes.com

Best of Chicago 2012

The Lincoln Park Zoo’s new critters
You don’t need to hit the internet to ogle at cute animals in 2012. Do you start with the pair of wombats that joined the Brookfield Zoo this summer? Or what about the pearly white baby beluga whale born at the Shedd Aquarium in August? Nay—neigh!—it must be Christmas for Lincoln Park Zoo already, because two of its recent additions are not only adorable, they’re endangered species. A baby western lowland gorilla (whose name and sex are to-be-determined) was born in October, and Kito, a Grevy’s zebra, whose name means “jewel” in Swahili and was decided by more than 2,000 public votes, arrived in August.

Best of Chicago 2012

Rotofugi
This designer toy store in Lincoln Park gets its prefix from the molding process of making vinyl toys (roto), its suffix from the name of the owners’ dog (Fugi) and its product line from all over the world. With designer toys and limited edition runs lining the shelves, along with a rehabbed Mold-a-Rama machine (rechristened “the Roto-a-Matic”) cranking out unique plastic molds, anything you buy at Rotofugi carefully straddles the fence between toy and art.

Rotofugi, 2780 North Lincoln, (773)868-3308, rotofugi.com

Best of Chicago 2012

Photo: Kristine Sherred

CorePower Yoga

Regardless of whatever misgivings you might have about supporting a corporate yoga company, there’s no denying the advantage of having seven—soon-to-be-eight—studios located throughout the city, each with almost a dozen classes each day. Regardless of where you plan to get your next drink, there’s somewhere nearby that gets you a yoga high and yoga bod beforehand—no excuses. But the CorePower mecca is the South Loop studio: As you search for a drishti (gazing point) in tree pose, you can choose to focus on an element of Chicago’s downtown skyline, which the fifth-floor studio showcases through its large windows.

CorePower Yoga
12 West Maple, (312)266-9642
1704 North Milwaukee, (773)227-9642
945 West George, (773)862-9642
corepoweryoga.com

 Audience choice: (tie)
Bikram Yoga Chicago
47 West Polk, (312)922-9642
1344 North Milwaukee, (773)395-9150
2736A North Clark, (773)348-9642
105f.com
and
CorePower Yoga

Best of Chicago 2011

Wise Fools Pub

Located at Lincoln and Belden, you’d think that Thursday night, aka 50-cent Miller High Life Draft night, would be packed with college kids. Well, you’d be wrong. The crowd ranges from college kids to people in their mid-thirties, and you never know when it’s going to be a chill night or a rowdy night. It has a lengthy bar, a pool table and a dance floor off to the side with its own bar. But the best part—besides the free popcorn—is that you can feel like a baller by ordering rounds for your friends and still not need to break a $20.

Wise Fools Pub
2270 North Lincoln
(773)929-1300
wisefoolspub.com

Best of Chicago 2011

Galway Bay

This pub is a hidden gem. Hidden downstairs, first are the dart boards and the pool tables. To the left is the ring-shaped bar, the popcorn machine, the TVs playing sports, and for some, the main attraction: big, comfy, leather couches and seats clustered around two TVs with a selection of NES, SNES and N64 systems. For any nostalgic gamer, it’s heaven: GoldenEye, Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 64 and so much more for all of the systems. Shelves of cartridges. Be prepared to spend way too many lives there.

Galway Bay
500 West Diversey
(773)348-3750

Best of Chicago 2011