A block off Halsted and you’ll find country-bar and late-night dance club Charlie’s as well as neighborhood bar The Closet – both on Broadway.Chicago’sthriving LGBT population is largely concentrated in two neighborhoods: Boystownand Andersonville. And no trip to Boystown is complete without a sojourn to Steamworks, they Disney World of bathhouses. Predominantly gay restaurants/bars X/O (owned by Hydrate’s owners), Kit Kat Club and Cornelia’s all combine upscale fare with the gay bar environment. Sure there’s karaoke, but there’s a whole room of pool tables, dart boards, and video games and usually a sporting event of some kind on the tube.Īll along the way, you’ll find more interesting gay destinations. The bar looks like the type of place a lounge singer named Bobby Love might perform but it is a no-attitude environment. Halsted, is – I’m told – where people go who are serious about drinking and getting a bang for their buck. Don’t worry if you don’t own chaps – a leather vest will do (a leather jacket will not however).īobby Loves, at 3729 N. To get into the back room – open on weekends only – you need to wear a major item of leather. But recently, they reopened “the Yard” – which is essentially their backroom, so that’s a good sign for the depraved. It is not as hard core as the leather venues further north like the Eagle and Touché. They recently got a digital jukebox which is a major improvement over the old jukebox’s same-old never changing offerings.Ĭellblock, at 3702 N.
There’s always one TV screen dedicated to gay porn. They’re open nightly till 4 AM and 5 AM on weekends. It’s where you go after everyplace else is closed and you just want to seal the deal and go home. Hydrate is open late typically till 4 AM. Recently, they started a manicure special on Tuesday nights. During the week, the bar has teamed up with some interesting drag performers. They get some of the better known national DJs. The walls are adorned with the heads of real bucks but if that scares you, in the summer, there’s a surprisingly tranquil and festive back patio with its own bar. Halsted, gets gays of all sexes, shapes, and sizes. Cocktail has one unique thing to offer – go-go boys.īuck’s, at 3349 N. Often Cocktail gets the run off of people from Roscoe’s.
Halsted, is directly across the street from Roscoe’s – you can see Cocktail if you look out the front windows of Roscoe’s. Roscoe’s can get as crowded as Sidetracks but never feels as closed-in because the bar’s entire “east wall” is glass window looking onto Halsted.Ĭocktail, at 3359 N. At times a stand-and-model video bar, there’s also dancing in the back room at night. Halsted, is what TV’s Cheers bar would be if Norm and Cliff were 28, hot, and gay. Sidetracks is not for claustrophobes – the bar is usually packed. In the summer, there’s a relatively new roof deck. They have theme nights like Show Tunes on Mondays, as well as comedy nights and retro music theme nights. Halsted, is a multi-room, multi-level video bar. Being 42, I’ve only been inside Spin because it’s the place that participants in the annual Halloween Costume Parade register. Spin, located at the corner of Halsted and Belmont, is a dance bar that attracts mainly a younger crowd. Beginning at the southernmost bar and running north, this is Boystown U.S.A. What makes a Boystown bar-crawl so easy is that 99% of the bars run down about a ½ mile stretch of North Halsted Street.
Gay visitors to the city invariably head first to the area of Chicago’s Lakeview and Wrigleyville neighborhoods known as Boystown.