Wanting Something That’s Not on the Menu:
An Informal Review of The Other Side Bar
Living in a large city means never having to eat the same meal twice, but that makes it twice as difficult to be decisive when it’s dinnertime. In the age of Yelp, everyone’s a critic. On this night, however, when it feels like the temperature is dropping five degrees every thirty minutes, this chooser can’t be begging for the latest and greatest — except in price — farm-to-table fare.
Chicago has an enviable bar and restaurant scene, but your mileage may vary dramatically from one neighborhood to the next. The food-rich North Side is a walkable smorgasbord of tastes, Lincoln Park in particular. The area provides an interesting intersection of dining experiences: higher-end restaurants seamlessly host both recent college graduates and families with recent additions alongside one another. Dive bars add welcome color to an otherwise neutral neighborhood, apathetically undercutting the glittery, eight-dollar-domestic-beer joints. In my sneakers and t-shirt, I passed on upscale tapas from Café Ba-Ba-Reeba! and Oyster Bah and headed east toward Clark Street. It’s tricky business traipsing north here, as Cubbie blue bleeds relentlessly from Wrigley, staining businesses with its cult-like commercial values. When I walked by The Other Side, a nondescript bar just a block north of Fullerton Avenue, I felt an unanticipated sense of relief.
The Other Side has an unlit sign hanging above its entryway. It’s an interesting choice in a city that sees nightfall at four o’clock in the afternoon for eight months out of the year. The narrow doorway and tinted windows give little away, with glowing, neon signs providing the only surefire signal of a pulse inside. But nothing about the exterior of the establishment alluded to an unspoken dress code of high heels, skinny jeans, or gingham button-downs. I didn’t question if I was too old, too young, too single, or too attached to be there. There is a pleasant lack of prerequisites.
Walking inside, your route is almost chosen for you: the narrow space has a standard-size bar that juts out onto the floor, leaving just a slim strip of walkway for those uninterested in fighting for bar stools. (Sixteen, I counted.) I was greeted by an immediate turning of heads, a silent, “Who’s there?” from a bar dotted with languid customers. Sparking no further interest from the patrons, I continued forward and took a seat at the end of the bar, where the pathway bottlenecks dangerously before letting out into a slightly larger area of high tops and televisions.
The all-important atmosphere of the bar isn’t quite relaxed — I find it hard to achieve nirvana when I can hear printers spitting out tickets and a literal whoosh as servers speed past— but it is decidedly easy. It’s a well-worn establishment with weathered wood and exposed brick. A neighborhood bar but not a dive, anti-industrial and in stubborn contrast to so many of the shiny, sleek spaces reshaping Lincoln Park’s sidewalks. It’s the type of space you find comfort in so long as you don’t wonder too much about the integrity of the structure or what the last health inspection unearthed.
I’m welcomed, handed several menus, and given room to contemplate. I notice that the larger menu is a single, double-sided plastic sheet and that only one side has an insert listing food: burgers, wings, typical bar fare. The other side — ha — is blank, prompting the question of what used to be there. A skinnier, second menu is paper, foldable, and details available beers, spirits, and cocktails. The third menu is for The Pasta Bowl, the adjoined restaurant featuring Italian noodle dishes. The Other Side is named as much because it is quite literally the other side of this sister establishment. On either side of the bar, there are two doorways between the restaurants, connecting them and creating what is essentially a large circle for customers and servers from both directions to cycle through.
When the bartender returns, I ask him for a “Chicago Handshake,” the blustery duo of an Old Style tallboy and a shot of Malört. “And one for you, too, if you’re interested,” I say as he pours the bitter liquor. He declines with a polite grimace, reaching instead for Jameson, the industry favorite. Cheers. Down the hatch. I wince and clear my throat as I look around.
Blackboards: they’re a thing here. On the wall between the two entry doors, lining the brick wall facing the bar in frames, and covering the entirety of the back three walls. Most have artwork or announcements of specials, but a few are completely bare. While I can’t know why they are vacant, I can assume they shouldn’t be. Calling the emptiness a problem seems too dramatic, but I can’t deny that even as a casual observer, I’m suddenly concerned with how to fill in the blanks. All restaurants, all businesses, use an image or attitude to define their brand and set expectations. But when you come into a bar and see nothing where something should be on the walls, what are you to think?
Part of the consideration here is who is doing the thinking. Tonight’s crowd is varied and engaging with their surroundings at different levels. The crowd at the bar is mostly male and in ones and twos, the sum of the whole greater than the parts. Several of the patrons across various tables are drinking only water. A tepid couple sits at a high top, their body language indicative of a first date. While the age range is diverse, the legal drinking age prevents anyone under 21 from entering, and the lack of low tables makes it less physically desirable for weary bodies. There’s no rhyme or reason to who comes through the door or when on this February weekend night, but all are greeted with the same curious turn of the head that I received.
It’s also worth considering that in a bar that’s open until two am daily — three am on Saturdays — there’s probably a lot happening here that patrons aren’t necessarily in control of. On the TouchTunes jukebox, rapper Lil Pump’s cringe-inducing banger “I Love It” plays immediately after The Beatles’ “You Won’t See Me.” The Bulls-Pelicans game is on, no sound or captions. The bar has promotional material on a front-door-facing television, and another screen has gag-reel videos from The Chive providing its viewers with a cheap laugh. The comedy Zoolander plays on a few TVs. Through it all, the lighting is dim and the music is loud.
I kept my visit brief, but it would have been all too easy to let the night — and my wallet — stretch in front of me. With its low-maintenance offerings, The Other Side will appeal to some more than others. For the former, it’s possible that they won’t even know exactly what it was that sold them on this one of countless, friendly Chicago bars. Maybe it’s that the possibilities are open rather than empty, that you can think you know what you’re going to get but you just don’t.
