Chalk Craft Beer House

Okay, so I’ve been back to Chalk several times and have to say this place is growing on me. It’s probably the best bar on Madison in regards to craft beer. They have stuff that is extremely hard to find, even better than a lot of bars in the city. They even had recent tap takeover events from the likes of Lagunitas and Three Floyds which is pretty cool. The food while limited to your typical bar fare is pretty decent, especially the mozzarella sticks and the beer battered onion rings.
Granted it’s not the hippest looking bar on Madison, but the décor is a mishmash of traditional Irish pub and artsy hipster dive bar that is popular, especially in the city right now. So if you and your crew enjoy craft beer then this is the place to go in FP (check out
to see what they have on tap).
Oh btw that weird bartender from my original review is long gone and the current Bartender Nate is great.

One of the best craft beer menus in the suburbs, period! They always have 3 Floyds on tap and consistently have higher quality beers on tap as well. As for food, they don’t offer much, but this is really an ideal spot for great craft beer. The place never gets too busy and keeps out the flashy, college kids due to some higher priced beer. Can’t miss location for the craft beer enthusiast, not to mention great bartenders!

The Forest Park bar for those that know good beer. Fun and friendly environment. Solid beer rotations. Regular FFF Zombie Dust. Great Chicago Beer Week specials.
Appetizers are just ok. Clientele is generally good people who like good beer.

The only reason it gets two stars is because it has a good beer selection. The place isn’t nice at all. It took forever to get a drink. After finishing one drink, we sat there for 15 minutes waiting for the bartender to come back. After waiting, I just sat with my credit card out waiting to pay because I didn’t want another drink anymore. Another 15 minutes later, bartender still didn’t even look our way. Just took out the exact amount of cash, threw it behind their bar and left (I wanted to leave without paying, but my fiancée didn’t want to).

My friend from Cali and I wanted to go out. McGaffers (near my house) closed down and a patron was nice enough to drop us at Doc Ryan’s. We quickly decided that we didn’t fit in there and moved on to Chalk. The beer selection is pretty decent. That gets it 2 stars. The staff was friendly enough, but we were the only people in the place and it was a little strange. The bar could use some food options too (OK I can’t remember if they had something, but it was lackluster at best). Make this place a classy beer bar and spruce it up some!

If you want a craft beer anywhere in Chicago this is not the place. It is a complete dive and the waitress doesn’t know a thing about craft beers. If I could give no stars for this place I would. The owner was there trashed, and they served us expensive craft beer in plastic miller light cups. Even dive bars have glasses. ZERO STARS. What a waste of space on Madison street.

One of the best craft beer bars in the suburbs, hands down. It is also one of the only places to constantly have Three Floyds on tap, which makes it stand out even more for me!

Good beer selection says this craft beer enthusiast.
But, don’t try and engage the bartender dude who could care less about craft beer and chatting about it. Or chatting with anyone about anything in general, even when the place is empty. At least try to not be a di*k, homie.
The food is meh– your typical fried bar food. The party space upstairs is cool but the bathrooms were dirty. They also messed up and didn’t have the keg delivered in time for our friends’ party. Boo. They made up for it by serving bottles of Lagunitas but messed up and started charging guests although the party was open bar. Awkward…

OK, here was my experience at Chalk on Monday night around 7:30PM…
I walked in and sat near the end of the bar. There was a couple about two seats over and a single guy about four seats past them. The woman half of the couple said «Welcome» in a somewhat sarcastic tone as the place was so empty. No one else in sight. I sit there for about 3 – 5 minutes, my intent being to order a burger and a beer and watch some of the Bulls game.
A bartender pops out of the back, glances down the bar. She walks over near the single guy, takes an order and gives him a drink, then starts to chat a bit. Then she pours some shots, does a shot with him, takes her jacket off and settles in for further conversation. I wait a couple more minutes and determine that there were only three people in the place because that was obviously the maximum number of people that the bartender on duty was capable of serving.
There are simply too many bars, restaurants and brew pubs around that are capable of serving guests for me to have to call out a bartender for service. I walked out.

Tricky review. Beer selection is decent with several interesting things to try. I would come back for a beer. Server was pleasant and nice. However, the appetizers were gross. Not sure why they even bother with food. Maybe some freshly prepared flatbreads would be a better choice?! The fried apps were not good. Other complaint is about the the glasses. They ran out of glasses for the beer flights. Really? Also, You have to write your beer choices on a scrap of paper for your beer flight. Why not print out a sheet each day of the beer choices and have people circle their choices.
Some slight improvements could turn this place into four stars!

Bartender was nice&If your looking for a craft beer ‚.fine but the health dept could stand to shut the kitchen DOWN… food grade horrible, the freezer burnt taste, still cold on inside & just plain ol nasty. not to mention they where out of at least 3 items on a 10 item menu.

«The Bartender’s Bar» in downtown Forest Park.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the appetizers (the poor waitress was waiting tables and making food!), but the beer selection more then made up for it. The staff was friendly, the beer flights are reasonable, and there was even a Frank Sinatra singer there for free that night!
It’s especially fun later in the night, when the rooms fill up. Great place to watch the Sox play!

Nice laid back bar, better than the rest of the bars on Madison St. A good selection of craft beers. Not real noisy like the rest of the bars in the area, it’s nice not to have to yell to talk. Bar tender was very knowledgeable & friendly. Seemed like there was only one bar tender working so service was a little slow at times, but overall a good bar to check out.

Walked in tonight to have a beer with the wife, sat at the bar and waited. And waited. Literally nobody was manning the bar. As in, there appeared to be no employees in the place for somewhere around 10 minutes. It was pretty odd.
However, I wasn’t personally offended as about two other confused groups of thirsty patrons were also not being served. Seeing that the place wasn’t crowded, I don’t see how not selling your product to willing customers is a great business practice.
However, it appeared they had a nice selection of beers. Too bad we did not get to try any.

Where oh where do I begin, after a friend and I sat at a table for 15 minutes waiting we finally decided to call it quits watching every other person get served. On our way out I said thank you for the service to which I was told «we don’t have any servers today retard» which is where I probably should have taken action but seeing as how there was only 3 people at the bar I’ll just let him go out of business on his own terms because clearly I am not the only one who can see the person behind the bar is a rude, ignorant, pathetic waste of a human. Atleast I got my refund from groupon!

Hands down BEST BAR on Madison St! Love this place! Decorated really nicely & simple, the whole upstairs has chalkboard walls. Has live music a lot, great beer & drink selection, has a much better, safer, chiller vibe than some other bars on the block that are overcrowded with obnoxious, rude, Jersey shore wannabes. Good for private parties too, my sister had her graduation party here, got the whole top floor.

Great beer selection. Zombie Dust aplenty which is unheard of in Forest Park. A plethora of both draft and bottled beer.
Personally, I enjoy a beer that is hoppier than most. I’ve been here a number of times and haven’t tried a brewski I didn’t like. The selection here will sate the snobbiest of appetites.
So if you want an extensive selection of booze, but don’t want to travel to the city and spend gobs of money, come to Chalk and hoist a few. Come to the Oak Park/​Forest Park area and see what everybody is rhapsodizing about. You shan’t be disappointed.

They pretty consistently have Zombie Dust so I mean… 5 stars.
It’s never crowded in here, the people are super nice, they show all your favorite sports games, and they have Zombie Dust.
Need I say more?

Beer selection is good but it’s all bottles with a few taps. The service is pretty much nonexistent. Cool chalkboard theme. Fried pickles are good. Décor is standard Oak Park bar scene though. Beer garden is a plus. Good location. They need to get more taps if they want to be taken as a craft beer destination.

New addition to the Madison Ave scene, and a fairly good one. Better beer selection than others on this cool, bustling metro-​suburb stretch of bars, restaurants and craft shops.
Craft beer house because there are 12 – 15 mostly unusual things on tap and several coolers loaded with a varied selection of micros from across the country. They also have a strictly pedestrian bar food menu but a fairly nice patio with outdoor bar that wasn’t operating for whatever reason on a Friday night?!
Inside multiple chalk boards on the walls allow employees, patrons and semi-​pro ‘artists’ to share messages with future patrons is kinda neat, but on the downside the bar tenders are smug and impatient frat boys and the place is pretty small.
Just the same, this type of place where you can really branch out beer-​wise and try something new, was missing from the area.