Put your Faith 'n Whiskey

Saturday night my friends made the terrible mistake of attending Wrigleyville's Red Ivy. I had advised against this plan from the first mention of the brutal bar, but was struck down. After a $12 cab ride we had to wait in line for about 10 minutes. To think anyone would wait in line for ANY bar in Wrigleyville completely blows my mind, but for RED IVY, you have to be kidding me?

When we got to the door, the utterly unfriendly bouncer informed one man in our group he could not wear his hat into the bar because it was apparently interpretted to not be classy enough for this fine establishment. Walking in to see a MAN, yes a MAN with frosted tips and white sunglasses on his head made us wonder just how much sense of class this bouncer had....

After standing in line and being bumped into by barbacks and others of the 15 bouncers for a good 10 minutes, we finally were able to order luke warm $5 Miller High Lifes... At this time I was hoping the large black man from the commercials would stroll in and remove each beer from bar, because Red Ivy certainly did not deserve to live the high life...

We finally found a table all the way back in the corner, right near an obnoxiously loud speaker and were forced to watch (and feel) the herd of 200 pound females flailing their arms about the stage and shaking their rumps like a free cheeseburger was on the line. This unattractive display of nastiness did not deter the many Ed Hardly's who were in attendence from rubbing their white belts all over the 38" female waists infront of them. For a moment the amount of beastiality going on infront of me made me forget i was in an Urban setting.

To my surprise, after about 25 minutes of feeling I was in heffer hell, a group of attractive women walked in. Of course they probably would have been much more attractive if their skin wasnt orange and they weren't wearing Bump-its. I was only knocked into about 4 times as the Ed Hardly's shifted their hair-gel and chains from the deuce and/or deuce-n-a-quarters on the dance floor to the new flock of skanks walking in. At this point, it was time to go....

We decided we needed to find somewhere that would be the exact opposite of the utter piss we had just encountered and headed down to Faith and Whiskey. As we rolled up to the door, we were pleasantly greated by a bouncer who was cracking jokes and asking us how our night was. As my friend walked in, with his hat placed back on his head where it belonged, the bouncer complimented it. We informed him of our encounter at Red Ivy and he questioned why we would ever go there in the first place. Your guess is as good as mine, my man.

As we walked in the door it was so refreshing to not hear Lady GaGa bumping with awful screeching noises being mixed in by a so called DJ who had his I-pod and a headphone on 1 ear. We immediately noticed the custom decor complete with classic, black motorcycles over the bathrooms and a signature mural on the back, exposed brick wall. And nothing said ROCK like the complete collection of Electric Guitars popping off the calming blue walls. All this excitement before I even ordered a drink?

Being a man who respects his whiskey, I decided I would put the name to the test. I believe I tried about 7 types of whiskey throughout the night and I didnt even make it 1/3 of the way through the choices. At this point I was pulled away from the bar by the bridal party who was there to rock out one last time with the single lady at the helm. I cant even begin to tell you how nice it was to see a Chicago bride-to-be not decked out in pink penises being chased around by a crew of overweight redheads all harassing me for condoms, boxer shorts and other obnoxious items on some childish list. Instead, these ladies were there to DRINK.

The party raged on until 3 in the morning, and I will spare you the wonderful details of all that happened in between, but highly encourage you to see for yourself. I recommend Thursday Nights for Karaoke to a live band. Fridays offer free food for 'happy hour' and Sunday is table side keg service for $20. The only complaint I can come up with is there are NO other bars on that side of town, but honestly, you wont need one.

Faith and Whiskey gets an A+ in my book while Red Ivy comes in with a big fat F.... mostly because if I stayed any longer there was a good chance something more than the Ivy could have turned red....