BARS & CLUBS
Readers’ Choice: High Dive
Readers’ Choice: Fizz and Happy Village (tie)
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The demise of Linda’s, the Saxony, the Lakeview Lounge, and Sharon’s Hillbilly Heaven (which appears in Dwight Yoakum’s 1986 video for “Guitars, Cadillacs,” filmed when he was across the street at the Aragon opening for the Violent Femmes) leaves Carol’s Pub the sole remaining shitkicker joint in Uptown, where folks from Appalachia settled en masse in the 1950s. Carol’s is, to be kind, a dump. The beer is cheap and comes in pitchers, nonironic country music populates the jukebox, and let’s not even talk about the bathrooms. But if it ever tried to better itself, where would the barflies who live there during the day wind up? The 4 PM crowd runs the gamut from surly to incoherent, but things brighten up considerably on weekend nights, when house band Diamondback plugs in and ranges through a few decades of country and western (yes, they play both kinds). There’s a dance floor if you feel like shaking it, and you can socialize at real tables on real chairs, not those high stools that leave your feet dangling. If you’re going to be drinking a lot, and you are, you want both feet on the ground. a 4659 N. Clark, 773-334-2402. —Patrick Daily
Readers’ Choice: Carol’s Pub
a 2656 N. Lincoln, 773-327-4000.
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