Place to watch the tournament

Can anyone help me?
I'm looking for a place to watch the tournament on Friday for five people, all day. I'm looking for a place South of Irving Park and North of 18th and East of Western.
Here are the rest of the criteria:
Good bar food
Not too smokey
Not too crowded
Lots of TVs so I can watch multiple games at once without moving
Friendly people/staff
Not a Lincoln Park clone.

It's a struggle every year for us to find a place that has the right combo of these things. I've seen lots of places like this in the burbs but the burbs aren't an option.

Thanks for any advice you may have.

what tournament?

Christopher Gordon wrote:what tournament?

What else...Iron Chef America

Sorry.
The NCAA basketball tournament.

Piece on North Ave. had an advertisement saying they'd be showing every NCAA tourney game & pumping up the place for games. If we weren't so obsessed with watching our games on TIVO, I'd probably give it a thought.

Good pizza, great brews & a fun atmosphere....

miss ellen

Unfortunately I don't have tivo. But we seem to be getting along fine with our stone tools, and my wife recently let me have this new invention called a wheel.

Thanks for the tip on Piece.

You can buy a 40 hr Tivo for $50.Will cost you $12.95 per month though.Very cool device!

fyi CBS Sportsline is streaming all the games from the first three rounds, live, on their website, for free.

http://www.ncaasports.com/mmod

Players on Ogden has been my latest find--multiple big screens--and still not completely catching on in my River West hood, which is perfectly fine with me.

I would also add The Globe Pub as a possible choice. It's on the North side of Irving (might not make the cut), just East of Damen. Lots of flat screens, great beer selection and above average bar food (standard + Irish/English classics); plus, they typically offer specials on wings, beer, etc. Here's a link to their site:

http://theglobepub.com/

I'll throw in Hawkeyes on Taylor, just east of Loomis as a good place to watch the game. In case you think I'm lobbying for #3 seed Iowa to advance, I'm not, Hawkeyes has nothing to do with U of Iowa's mascot.

They have good service, good food, and a pretty relaxed Taylor Street crowd who's in to watching sports. There are PLENTY of TVs so you won't have a problem finding whatever game you're looking for.

Hawkeye's Bar & Grill
1458 W. Taylor St.
312.226.3951

Thanks a lot. Great suggestions!

I really like the Union Park Lounge for watching games 228 S Racine Ave

Here's a writeup and pic of the outside
http://www.planet99.com/chicago/restaurants/15190.html

Union Park is an outstanding place to watch a game.
Nice TVs.

Sounds goofy, how about Lucky Strike (next to AMC River North)? Lots of sitting rooms, and tons of TV, good staff, OK food, not the worst, not the best.

LS is a good call. More upscale than I'm used to but a good venue to see a game. Very comfortable and lots of nice TVs.
Thanks

also a good rec is player's club on ogden. i thought of that as well after my piece suggestion.

we did some of the white sox playoff games at players club & while it did get a bit crowded, there are TV's everywhere!

good cheap grub, too.

miss ellen

alessio20 wrote:I would also add The Globe Pub as a possible choice.

I happen to like the Globe for its clientele as much as for it's abundance of widescreen TVs. Falling into an interesting conversation with one of the many Brits who patronize the establishment is more than a likely occurrence if you go there. You can imagine my surprise and concern then, when I visited two nights ago, when I was told that they were "out" of several different types of beer and liquor.

Since they had advertised the monthly special as Heinken for $3 a pint, I opted to start with that. No dice. They were out of Heines, and were offering Amstels instead. OK, no problem -- after all, they're both mass market Dutch offerings. I then asked for a Belhaven, a Scottish ale, which they had as draft. No luck there -- they were out of it. I went with a Stella instead.

Towards the end of the evening, we decided to up the stakes with shots. My friend asked for a pair of Jack Daniels' and was told that they were out of it (!!!). What bar runs out of Jack? We opted for Wild Turkey instead. Moments later, a crestfallen waitress returned to tell us that they were out of that too! Ack! We comforted ourselves with some shots of Jamesons.

If you're keeping score, on that particular Wednesday night, they were out of:

Heineken
Belhaven
Jack Daniels
Wild Turkey

Can anyone shed some light on this? I was disappointed to say the least, as the Globe is a favorite of mind. Sounds to me like someone missed a couple of payments to their beer/liquor distributor.

I would also add The Globe Pub as a possible choice.

If you're keeping score, on that particular Wednesday night, they were out of:

Heineken
Belhaven
Jack Daniels
Wild Turkey

Can anyone shed some light on this? I was disappointed to say the least, as the Globe is a favorite of mind. Sounds to me like someone missed a couple of payments to their beer/liquor distributor.

Or someone new did the ordering and put in the wrong count. Or they had a big crowd the week before and ran out before they expected. Or they are in the middle of changing their distributors. Or noone restocked the bar before you got there, and the shift lead didn't feel like doing someone else's work. Or no one was free to leave the floor to stock from the inventory while you were there. Or the inventory isn't accessible to the floor staff for some unknown reason to you and me and everyone else who doesn't actually work for the Globe ...

*shrug*

grant wrote:You can buy a 40 hr Tivo for $50.Will cost you $12.95 per month though.Very cool device!

fyi... as of last week they changed their pricing model.. they no longer sell tivo boxes, you basically pay extra for it in the monthly charge as a rental... so now you pay $17/mo or something (starting price) without paying for the box. they also did away with lifetime activations..