After no more than one Bloody Mary (and a beer or two) at Blue Line I was hopeful for a better Bloody at Northside only about a block away. We made a quick walk over (losing Dan, Katie, Melissa C., Trevor and Emily along the way: Thanks for coming y’all!). At Northside there is a front room and a back area with bars in each, as well as an indoor and outdoor eating area. It’s kind of college-y feeling, though the clientele isn’t all ALL college. Throughout the day we all noticed a LOT of Blackhawks fans (fair enough, playoffs and all), a weird group in what looked like karate uniforms with red belts- some of the wearing on horns on their heads (huh?), and an exorbitant amount of super-drunk girls wearing leggings as pants (get it together ladies). We refueled with some goat cheese pizza and chicken nuggets and ordered our Bloodies. 

These ones were pretty- garnished with salami cubes (none for me though), a good little dill pickle, cheese and olives. They were thin, but not in necessarily in a bad way. It had a good flavor, but Hil, Jen and I all agreed it could use more of it. It was light and really drinkable, and for the most part everyone agreed that while we wouldn’t make a special trip to Northside for them, we would all drink the bloodies there again.

People started to peel away a bit at this point in the day (evening?) but we did get to see Kate E. (my high school friend) and her husband which was a treat- especially when she and Hil figured out that they knew each other long before I was ever a glimmer in Hil’s eye. It was also great to hear about Kyle’s adventures on her local food tour of the U.S. I wonder if she had any good Bloody Marys…hmmm.

Overall we gave the Northside Bloody Mary: 3/4 (would have been a solid 3 if they included a sidecar.)

Northside Bar & Grill

1635 N Damen Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647
Neighborhoods: Bucktown/Wicker Park

773.384.3555
http://northsidechicago.com