The University of Chicago Pub

The Pub is a membership only club at the University of Chicago. You can get in if you are the friend or spouse of an alum or current student for a small fee. There is zero ambiance, but great beer. The bartenders are super friendly. Food is merely okay, but the chips are shockingly good.

The best place to get a drink in Hyde Park! (if you’re a student or guest, UCID required, with either a yearly membership fee at $ 10 or $ 3 at the door per person). The beer list is extensive with a rotating selection on draft; there are also many special offerings and tasting. The staff is kind and the food is generally pretty good (the buffalo wings and sweet potato fries are some of my favorites; the burger is pretty plain) – the pub is incidentally owned by the Medici, another great place to eat. The pub also offers several pool tables and shuffleboard.

This place is totally awesome! Do yourself a favor and get a membership ASAP.
If you live in Hyde Park, you need to come here. The beer selection is the best in Hyde Park (though not the cheapest, but also not super expensive), the atmosphere and lighting are super casual (come to study or hang out or play games or trivia!), and the bartenders are super nice and will totally help you pick. They do cool things, like the Beer Passport, where you can go every Wednesday and get a certain beer and get a cool shirt at the end of the quarter! Or trivia tuesdays!
Because it feels just like a place at UChicago, it feels like a really low pressure zone when it comes to renting your space with drinks purchased. Maybe this is not something that everyone thinks about.
Wifi is a bit sketchy, as is phone service, but it’s still a good space.
The food is from the Med, and is a bit on the pricey side but is solid for bar food.
If you go to UChicago, then this can be a place where you just show up and meet people and see people all the time, it’s the perfect kind of place that feels like a community bar. In that sense it is perfect.

Hands-​down, best place on campus ever. The beer selection switches up each week, and it is pretty affordable if you don’t feel like trekking all the way to Jimmy’s. I like the atmosphere here better than Jimmy’s – sorry if that’s a bougie thing to notice.
The staff is friendly, the place is relaxed, and its a great way to wind down after stressful midterms.
Membership to the Pub is $ 10 for a year, but totally worth it!

The Pub is a great place to go after finishing afternoon classes. Good beer selection, standard bar food, and a nice vibe with the mixture of Students talking about their research and other people just looking to play shuffle board and have a few drinks.
I would recommend getting out of the pub and back to the city before sun-​down. Hyde Park is not a great place to be drunk when the sun goes away and campus gets dangerous.

This place has it all: good beer selection, TVs, billiards/​Foosball and vintage décor with tons of character. There’s something for everyone!
I look forward to going back and trying the food.

The best bar in Hyde Park, by far. Unfortunately for anyone who’s not a University affiliate – student, faculty, or staff – it’s not accessible to you. If you do, however, fall into one of those categories, quit wasting your time and money elsewhere.
Ok, ok: a few more qualifiers.
If you really must have straight, cheap liquor, I’d suggest the Falcon: Jimmy’s charges too much for their shots and the Pub only serves a limited array of mixed (and only mixed) drinks. If you’d like wine or cocktails – and don’t mind paying a small premium – I’d suggest the newly-​operational A10, though the Pub does have a small (and cheap, without being totally terrible) wine selection, as well as the aforementioned mixed (and only mixed) drinks. And while I think the food – which, true to name and form, is no more and no less than pub food – is slightly higher quality at the Pub, it’s also a bit more expensive than Jimmy’s, with an earlier-​closing kitchen.
That catalogue being covered: if you want good beer, the Pub is not just the best bar in Hyde Park, it’s one of the better on the southside of Chicago.
Indeed, their handles pull a wide array of craft brews, including regularly-​stocked supplies of Three Floyds luminaries such as Alpha King, Gumball Head, Pride & Joy, and Zombie Dust – not to mention one-​offs you usually have to travel up to Bangers & Lace or Hopleaf to score – along with a frequent collection of other noteworthy craft selections. They seem to have a very good relationship with the regional distribution-​network, snagging great kegs from Two Brothers, Solemn Oath, Half-​Acre, Founder’s, Revolution, Bell’s, et al, with varying degrees of regularity (and somewhat dependent on season). They also frequently host tastings, during which you’ll at least nab some free sample-​pours, and you may – like the time Lagunitas visited – earn a free pint or some free branded glassware.
It can become busy, depending upon the time and the night; but, whether the population’s heavy or sparse, I find the Pub a great place to read, write, or study simultaneous to drinking. It’s also the perfect pairing to Doc Films, either before, after, or – on double feature days – between screenings.

As a university of Chicago grad student, I love this place. There might be some initial sticker shock at the price of the food. However, they give you what you pay for. Big portions, good-​quality. This place is convenient and manages to always have a good vibe going. Usually all the major sports channels are on.

Cheap and awesome foods /​draft beers including notable craft beers like lagunitas (does my heart good as a Californian) and seasonal brews (New Jersey Pumpkin Ale). Free pool tables and the noble sport of foosball break up the hard work of drinking with some important levity and generally the place has a jovial but accommodating atmosphere.
Basically anyone who goes to uchicago and doesn’t utilize this place is foolish. Try going to another university without the benefit of a campus pub and you’ll see how good you’ve got it.

Best bar in Hyde Park by a landslide. Fantastic beer list. You must be University of Chicago affiliated to become a member.

If you’re looking for a wider beer selection and a wider food selection than Jimmy’s, head to the southern end of campus and The Pub. Their fried veggies are great and the amount of beer that they have on tap is darn near overwhelming. Fair warning: don’t get too attached to one type of beer because they do rotate what is available on tap. Trivia night can get a bit crazy and it’s almost always full, but it’s a great place for hanging out with larger groups of people and for playing a few rounds of pool or table shuffleboard. The foose ball table was broken the last time I was there, though :(

College pub. Great beer, surprisingly good food. Had some really great memories in here. Word to the wise: Don’t wear your Ferragamos here because some drunken classmate of yours will most definitely spill beer all over your favorite shoes…

I will not comment the place itself because it doesn’t deserve any star.
I ordered a medium rare burger and i got a burned burger…
My friend Joaquin ordered a turkey burger and it was almost raw. He complained and then they gave him a burned burger without cheese.
The bread was terrible. Before they used to have bread and burgers from Medici now they have frozen burgers and bread from Wall Mart! It’s so crappy!
The service is awful.

I have a love/​hate relationship with the pub… in that I loved it so much, that I fell down a few times leaving… which made me hate it, for intoxicating me… I love it, mostly, though…
Cheap and good bar food, awesome selection of tap beer and ale, and great atmosphere. Used to bring the friends here, and went on a few dates here… Pretty decent hang out place for friends…
Try the pulled pork and it was alright… The food isn’t fantastic, but the beer on tap is!

It’s hard to not love the pub coming from UChicago. Where else can students go to relieve themselves of their own masochism every so often? Really, this is the place to be.
The booths are often occupied with UC students and their intellectually stimulating conversations. There is a pool table, a foosball table, and a fairly recently updated jukebox. The beer selection is decent and reasonably priced. The food is good, read: fish and chips. Delicious and nutritious… okay, maybe not really nutritious, but you won’t be disappointed!
UChicago students often have «membership» here, paid via a one time fee at the front door. Non-​members, I believe, pay a $ 5 cover each time.

You have to pay a cover to get in, but if you pay a $ 10 fee you’re set for the year (I was a student; I don’t know if it applies to non-​students). Besides Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap and the Reg, this is the quintessential UChicago hang out. There’s a pool table and darts. There’s one huge TV to watch important games on! There are typical bar drinks and food at bar prices.
It’s a bit on the dark side, and there’s not a lot of air circulation since it’s in the basement of Ida Noyes. But heck, it’s a huge part of the UChicago community, so it deserves four stars. Senior nights are always held there. Many drunken intellectual conversations (and perhaps many non-​intellectual as well hah) have taken place there.
I like to think that this place and Jimmy’s are what keep UChicago students sane during the academic year!

What a strange little cave this is. If F. Scott Fitzgerald went to U of C, this would be his hangout. Just a tiny dive bar, nothing fancy about it besides the conversations being had at is booths and stools.
Very nice staff, the shuffleboard had no sand on it so the bartender handed us a couple salt-​shakers for us to empty onto the board. Not the best place to watch sporting events, TVs were small and at funny angles.

Great:
–Large selection of beers on tap.
–Specials on beer mean you can get sometimes fantastic beer for $ 15/​pitcher (currently 3 Floyds is cheap on Wednesdays)
–Because it’s overseen by student activities it’s easy to set up events here. They bill your organization directly, no one needs to front the money and get reimbursed.
–It’s a pub, on campus.
–The dank! Oh man, is it dank. In a basement (next to the Dork Room).
Good:
–Big TV, but given this crowd it’s just as likely to show a primary debate between candidates for county board president as it is sports.
–Not too crowded (most of the time); lots of seating, but some is more comfortable than others.
–Your cell phone won’t work here, but your wifi connection will.
Not so hot:
–Recently they said they’re stocking booze for mixed drinks. They’ve yet to have any at all when I’ve been there. Hope everyone likes beer!
–Cover charges for non-​members have gotten pricier. The shuffleboard table is in bad shape.
–Closes early. Better for after-​work drinks than a cra-​a-​azy night.
–They close between academic quarters, and beer supplies tend to dwindle towards the end of each.
Ugh!
–Business school night. Go back to Rush Street!
And don’t forget:
–There are food specials, but they’re no longer listed on the menu, so ask.
–There are occasionally events going on here. It could mean trivia night (really aggravating if you’re not playing), or «grad student pub night» (a couple free beers).
–The staff loves to play «Zombie» on the jukebox. I think it’s to motivate patrons to pay to hear some decent music (or at least gain a brief respite from Dolores O’Riordan’s Unilocaling).

This might be my favorite bar ever!
I was first introduced to it from close friends who live down the street for a b-​day party. We’ve since been back several times due in part to their affordable beverages, delicious beverages, wide variety of beverages, nice jukebox selection, pool tables, friendly and attractive staff, historic and lovely building & surrounding areas, lack of enforcement on the entrance fees, and shuffle board.
I’m far too old for college, I never went to U of C & only know of 1 person who did, and I’m not from anywhere near the area but I still have a great time there as an outsider. It’s kind of a dingy basement but I say that from the very bottom of my heart.
I wish I lived closer to here so I could partake more often. Oh, one time my friend had his b-​day here and they did a wristband special and all drinks were INSANELY cheap.
I’ve had a lot of good times here and plan on going back for more, and more, and more.

Dearest Ida,
I hope you will accept a heartfelt apology for my extended absence. After not laying eyes upon you for over a decade, you once again allowed me to rest in your warm, cozy and humid bosom. You coddled me with a friendly staff, a fine selection of local brews and memories that were as comforting as they were hazy. You allowed me to touch you again, to penetrate your deep interior, and to sip your delicate libations. And for a brief moment in time yesterday, I had the pleasure, once again, of knowing how it feels to love you.
Yes, after our many long and sweaty nights together, my daytime booty call yesterday was a somewhat different experience. Have you grown quieter with age? Or is it just that school is out of session? Have you quit smoking? Or did the open windows and fresh air disguise the stale smell of cigarettes that used to linger on your breath?
No matter. Nostalgia has a way of smoothing out the rough patches … of making the pleasant memories more vivid and the difficult times more distant. You, Ida Noyes Pub, my one-​time lover and friend, welcomed me back into your arms yesterday so we could re-​live the passion we once shared, if only for a moment. And I love you for that, as I always will.
Rest assured, my dearest Ida, that though we may sometimes live apart, you will continue to haunt my most cherished memories. A passion like ours never dies. It just sleeps in a smoke-​filled haze, dreaming that the journey of life might someday allow us to meet again.
Love,
Ethan H.