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Quick: You need an icebreaker. Or you need to look busy to avoid that guy who’s been trying to buy you a drink. Enter: your childhood nostalgia, in the form of Monopoly, Yahtzee, and Candyland. Board games are no longer for bored kids…they’re making their way into bars all over Chicago. “It’s low-key, not intrusive, and encourages a social atmosphere,” says Dave Aksland, 37, a bartender at Green Eye Lounge in Bucktown.
Since everyone already knows about Guthrie's Tavern, we searched every neighborhood nook to find hidden dives where you and your cronies can go on a board-game binge. And really, there’s something memorable about your inebriated friend trying to sound intelligible while slurring, “What contaminated rainfall is caused by industrial pollution?” You’re making memories here, people. They just might be a little fuzzy.
Here are our 5 bitchin' bars with board games:
This dimly lit dive that’s not too dive-y (candlelit tables, brick walls covered with original art, and clean restrooms!) stocks up on dozens of board games-including Battleship and Uno, Green Eye’s most popular-that are listed on a chalkboard behind the bar. Patrons should leave their drunken debauchery at the door-the board games are there so “people won’t get rowdy,” says Aksland. But be careful, some of the games listed among chess and Scrabble sound suspicious. Something tells us you don’t want to ask to play “What’s in my Pants” or “Smell This.”
Odds are you wouldn’t be able to find this unassuming downtown hole-in-the-wall that’s the paragon of quirky chill unless you were looking for it. You can peruse a corner bookshelf and play Operation underneath the old dolls hanging from the ceiling above you. If you can’t reach the board games on the tall shelf, you can still croon your heart out Wednesday through Saturday on Blue Frog’s karaoke nights. Jenga and an awkward sing-along of “Afternoon Delight”? 9 Almost too good to be true.
Only recognizable by the neon sign peeking through a sidewalk-level window, the pub has a “Cheers”-like neighborhood feel with some old-fashioned pastimes mixed in (and coincidence: a “Cheers” board game sits on the shelf). Even on weekdays, you can hear “Whaaatss the name of Diiiisney’s moooost popular animated cocker spaaaaniel?” reverberating through the bar during an unruly game of Trivial Pursuit. Not in the mood for a trivia throwdown? You can also shoot pool, throw darts, or drink $2 PBRs.
This year-old bar keeps a wide selection of games in stock, including nostalgic favorites such as Yahtzee, Boggle, and a real gem: Apples to Apples, voted by Games magazine as “Party Game of the Year” a decade ago. But according to Blind Robin bartender Eric Houser, 36, it’s an understated-yet-classic word game that wins the “most likely to cause a bar brawl” vote. “I’ve seen people get into arguments over Scrabble,” he says. “We have a dictionary on hand for that purpose.”
A friendly match of “Go Fish” on a rainy afternoon convinced general manager Aaron Allen, 30, to bring board games to Goldie’s. Games were a “good rainy-day spark between future customers,” he says, and now bar-goers play all the time. Just don’t ask Allen for the answers: “Not a day goes by that some random person will come up to the bar to ask me if I know the answer to the Trivial Pursuit question card in their hand, as if I’m the buffer between reality and some made-up question.” The bar is tiny but makes up for its size with a pool table, darts, and a sweet jukebox.