Keg of Evanston

You have to know what you are getting in to when you come here. It’s not a bring your grandparents to school type of hang out. There are puul tables, flippy cup and beer pong out on the floor. The music is for dancing with someone you may or may not know. The drinks are reasonable and easy to get.
We stayed until bar close. I would happily do it again.

SO sad they closed the keg. Yes it was dirty, and they served stale popcorn, but there will never be another place like the keg. It was rated as the 9^th best college bar in the country! Most of my best college memories ocurred at this great place, and it will be sorely missed. I feel bad for the people at northwestern who will not be able to experience this place that unified the campus. The social life at Northwestern will never be the same :(

hahahahaha.
you should not come here if you have to use Unilocal to decide whether or not to come here.

I don’t love it here and I don’t hate it here. All I can say is that my experience is very very varied. Like I came here once when I was trying to match drinks with someone, and it was the best thing ever. But I also came here once while sober on a Saturday night and watched Kellogg students shake their hips awkwardly on the (empty) dance floor. I’m docking one star for the Kellogg students, and another star for the 50-​year-​out mountain men who creep around on crowded nights to gleer at undergrads. All in all, this is Northwestern’s bar (like in the movies where every college has that bar that is their bar) and I can’t hate it here.

**I wish I could give it 2.5 stars but I can’t so 2 it is.**
I’m laughing as I’m reviewing The Keg because it really is a college-​fratty-​type of establishment… complete with tables for drinking games, a stage with two poles and really nasty floors. But us business school students that think we’re back in college frequent this spot on Tuesday nights partly for the drinking games, dancing and cheap drinks.
Every other night (with the exception of some Fridays) it’s pretty dead and sprinkled with an «interesting» crowd. I have to be honest, I’m not sure you should be here unless you’re either a school on a Tuesday night or a NW undergrad trying to «live the life».

I admit I walked into this place right after work on a Tuesday. That being said, it was one of the most depressing bar scenes I’ve ever seen. The place itself is disgusting and disheveled, as though nobody has cleaned it this year. There was the guy who was sitting, waiting, doing anything possible to avoid going home to his wife. There were others, all sitting alone, kind of unfriendly. The bartender was ok, and the beer (Fat Tire) was $ 4.50, which wasn’t bad, so this place gets 2 stars. I wont be going back before 2am (when it supposedly becomes a Northwestern hangout)

If you’re looking at The Keg on Unilocal,you shouldn’t be going here.
I think the only rationalizations for coming to The Keg is that you’re either being dragged here by drunk friends, or that you’re underage. There is absolutely no reason anyone of age would ever want to come here sober. Dark, dirty, and borderline disgusting, the Keg is not an establishment of class or even affordability– the (mediocre) mixed drinks can still add up to a mighty tab.
If you must come here, I highly recommend getting a Stella from tap– only $ 4.50 and you’re guaranteed a nice big *glass* rather than the plastic they often serve the domestics in.
Oh, and if you’re not familiar, this place will be crawling with Northwestern and Kellogg students Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday of any given week. Beware.

No self-​respecting person over the age of 20 should ever enter The Keg. Yes, I said 20, not 21. This place is overrun with little tykes who think they’re the bees’ knees with their fake IDs, and the management doesn’t seem to care one ounce. Once you’re legally allowed to drink, you might as well put it to good use and be a bloody adult.

Kegs slogan should be «10 will get you 20» because there are nothing buy 16 year olds running around hammered and pissing on the bathroom floor. This place blows. If you’re 21 don’t be lazy, walk the half block down Sherman and go to prairie moon or nevins.

If you want to pick up some underage girls and meet douche bag new trier dude, this is the place to be! Once you hit the ages of 20, you’re already too old to go there.

Underage kids. Crappy beer selection. Dirty. Creepy townies and homeless people are just free to walk in the door. Nasty free popcorn. On weekends you can find this place packed with drunk underage creeps who try to make out with you as you walk past them and little girls dressed in the latest of skanky fashion, who can’t hold their liquor. Don’t waste your time.

Don’t judge this bar/​pub by it’s appearance. The staff is friendly and I had one of the best burgers ever last night. My husband had the wings. He loved his meal too. The foodand drink are so inexpensive. We had a load of food and drinks for only 30 including tax! What a bargain!

The Keg is the bar equivalent of spending the entire day lying on the couch in your underwear, ignoring the basic life necessities like food or a trip to the bathroom because both involve standing up, watching Tyler Perry’s show on WCIU because you wanted to see Cheaters five hours earlier and somehow the remote is now two feet out of reach. Walk for 5 minutes in almost any direction (or hop on the train into Chicago, a fairly large city directly south of Evanston that does in fact contain many drinking establishments of both dubious and excellent quality) and you can find a place that doesn’t smell like the kind of movie theater only old people go to and where most of the crowd isn’t trying to figure out how many absences they have left in their first period before they get an NC (ETHS run it!).
What I’m trying to say is, in short, go to the Keg if you are just motivated enough not to drink in your basement but too lazy to go to an actual bar — OR — if you are in high school. If a dive bar is what you desire, there are plenty in the city overrun with hipsters and somewhat alienated locals. This is not a «dive» really, just an Evanston institution for under 21’s who like to pay bar prices instead of just finding a house party.

I can’t figure out what’s more depressing — being at the Keg when it’s packed with underage students, or when it’s completely empty.
At least when the Keg is crowded, it’s harder to see it for what it really is. On Friday and Saturday nights, the sticky floor, smoke machine, and the funky popcorn stench are obscured by the hot, damp smell of massive throngs of teenagers with fake IDs.
When it’s empty, it’s just kind of sad.

I’ve only been to the Keg a few times and have yet to have a good experience there. I went during the summer with a small group. The place didn’t have air conditioning and it got so hot that after about an hour we had to leave or we’d pass out. I went again in the early fall and the place was packed wall to wall (it had to be a fire hazard). Plus there were a ton of people that were underage (they were even asking us for ‘pass backs’ on our IDs). Of course all the underage kids were out of control. They were charging a $ 5 cover… for what I don’t know. Needless to say I would never go there again.
However, if you’re underage, want to dance, or enjoy a crazy/​crowed bar this is the place for you.

ok listen. dont even try to dilute yourself into thinking that the keg is in any way a classy establishment. this is not a keg of stella artois, this is a keg of natty ice. that said, ive never really had a bad time here.
yes, ive always been extremely drunk by the time i got here, which im sure is a key to the keg’s sticky floored charm. but oh, the people you’ll meet.
ex: met someone here w/​my group of friends who worked in a pretty ritzy restaurant in town… got to tour the wine room after hours and have some very tasty champagne.
cleary, that was an exceptional night, but at the keg you can always count on: a dj who will play whatever you want him to, dirty/​uncoordinated/​really inappropriate dancing on the dance floor (and stripper poles), cheap (ish) drinks, and pretty funny people watching
dont go for a life changing experience. its a dirty bar w/​underage drinking and yes, a shooting did in fact happen several years ago. go because if anything youll drink cheap alcohol and see some pretty ridiculous people.

The Keg is what the kids today call a «dive bar», although I’ve never been one for that scene. What’s cool about drinking in a dump? The crowd is an interesting mix of Northwestern students, locals, and, wannabe gangstas from the surrounding area. I talked to 2 women in the bathroom who said they routinely drive in from Waukegan on the weekends to «lay it out» at The Keg. And, I got a few marriage proposals from drunk 20-​somethings, which is always nice.
The 2 uniformed police officers hanging out inside was a bit alarming. They weren’t waiting for takeout or talking to a friend. they were there in an official capacity. Now, I’ve been to my share of bars and not all of them nice and not once, ever, have I seen cops openly patrolling the joint, and yet I was intrigued. What goes down at The Keg that requires the presence of armed lawmen? Truthfully, not much. We ordered beer and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had Fat Tire on tap. The beer prices were pretty decent, and the place looks like a typical college town bar. The DJ was playing good music, actually; a nice blend of old school hip hop and current tunes, some of which I didn’t know and felt old, especially when there was much drunken grinding happening on the dance floor. Oh, and, the stripper pole off to the side saw a fair amount of action.
Our group of 6 stayed until 1:30 am and were surprised that it never got really crowded, even on a nice summer night. The biggest disappointment: the popcorn machine. Any place that has a popcorn machine w/​free popcorn would normally rate 5 stars with me, but, their corn was sad: stale, chewy and absolutely no flavor. Had that been better they would have rated 4 stars. It’s not the complete shit hole that I expected, and will probably go back every now and then when I’m feeling frisky.

Three star average? You’re kidding, right? This is the shittiest bar on earth.
Even as a dumb-​fuck freshman, I knew that this place was trash based on the stories and the clientele. Thankfully, I only set foot in there three times. The first was as a sophomore, when – I swear to God – I handed the bouncer my REAL ID, which showed me to be 19, and he just handed it back and waved me in. Unbelievable.
The second time I was actually legal, and my friend insisted on coming here on his 21^st-​birthday pub crawl. This was the place where the bartender gave him – unsolicited – a complimentary shot of Bacardi 151 even though he had clearly had way too much already. Class. My friend didn’t make it to the men’s room before ralphing up his entire pub crawl.
The third time was shortly after that for «Thirsty Thursdays» when they sell shit beer in a 32-​ounce cup for really cheap. Even then I had developed the early stages of beer-​snobbishness. I only went because I was trying to romance a girl who I knew would be there. I never did get together with that girl. I sure was a dumb bastard back then. In those days, your only choice was between The Keg and Tommy Nevin’s. Now you have mediocre crap such as Prairie Moon and Bar Louie in addition to gems such as The Celtic Knot. There is no excuse EVER to visit this shithole. Don’t go to The Keg unless you are under 21. Even then, I advise against it.
I hate The Keg.

Sick.
This bar f-​ing sucks. A couple nights a week they have some 18+ over nights and there are even people there who use fake 18 yr old IDs. They come from all the local suburbs to drink up. So if your in the mood to party with 15 yr olds who get dropped off by their parents in their Dodge caravan (yes I have witnessed this with my own eyes) then go to the Keg! The floors are distgustingly sticky, I have a feeling there were once roaches crawling in my beer, and the lighting is yellow and makes everyone look jaundice. As an Evanston alumni, I stay far far away and keep my ass in Chicago. The Keg is disgusting and no 21 yr old should be caught dead in there. Unless you are trashed beyond recognition, you will have a miserable time. At least go around the corner to Prarie Moon or Bar Louie, it has more class and keeps the teenagers out.
O and get over the shooting people.

It’s called «The Keg», so what can you expect? It’s an Evanston staple, and one of the rights of passage for new freshmen at Northwestern. The dance floor is so crowded and there’s the sketchy 45 year old men who are only there to try to bribe college girls with beer. But it does make for a fun Monday night out every once in awhile, and the music is usually pretty good and the drinks are fairly cheap. It’s nothing compared to Nevin’s or Prairie Moon, but it’s one of the few places that let you in underaged on certain nights, so you take what you can get.
One night my friends did meet a bunch of Chicago Bears players there, though, so it does have its pay-​offs.