If you consider yourself a serious diner and a thoughtful consumer of food, if you follow restaurant openings the way other people follow college football, if you’re in the habit of tracking the progress of chefs from kitchen to kitchen, if you’re willing to journey to distant points south and west and even suburban to try a place you read about on LTHForum, if you have a favorite purveyor of vegetables and another favorite purveyor of poultry, and if you have a considered opinion about whether Honey Butter Fried Chicken should serve its breasts with bones or without, you should not be eating at Blackfinn Ameripub.
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Of course, you knew that already since Blackfinn Ameripub happens to be one of those River North establishments where you would never dream of eating except under the threat of imminent starvation, or maybe out of duty to visiting relatives (but only under extenuating circumstances, like if they’re really old or pressed for time), the sort that caters to tourists and business travelers who are either too tired or too timid to leave the neighborhood at dinnertime. They don’t want to be challenged with fancy preparations and weird ingredients. They don’t want to be impressed with spectacular cooking. They just want something they can wash down with enormous quantities of beer. Preferably while watching a sporting event on a big-screen TV.
Blackfinn Ameripub is the latest outpost of a national chain with branches in Austin and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. (It is distinguished from its corporate sibling, the Blackfinn American Grille, which has a location in Mount Prospect, by the length and breadth of its drinks menu.) It occupies a cavernous space on the corner of Clark and Kinzie, divided into a bar and a dining room. The high ceilings amplify the sound of music and conversation to a level slightly louder than ordinary, cheerful sociability. It is not an especially attractive space, but there are tables long enough to accommodate an entire postwork office gathering, more than two dozen high-definition TVs positioned so you can keep track of at least two games from wherever you happen to be sitting, and a dazzling array of liquor bottles and beer taps lined up behind the enormous rectangular bar. You can get just about any nationally distributed beer on tap (the menu lists 70 varieties), and you can get it in a dainty nine-ounce glass, a traditional pint, a growler (which you can take home after you’ve drained it), or, most impressively, a 100-ounce dispenser, complete with spigot. The wine, alas, only comes by the bottle or glass, but a section of the menu headed “Who’s Buying” helpfully—if somewhat tackily—segregates the most expensive offerings, like Dom Perignon. (“This section is perfect for a rich relative or the boss’s expense account. No matter who’s buying . . . you’re worth it!”)
And therein lies the appeal of Blackfinn Ameripub and places like it: it’s an island of the familiar in the middle of a strange city where you probably don’t want to be in the first place. (If you did, you’d have ventured more than two blocks from your hotel room.) But at least you can watch the same football game you’d be watching if you were back home, and drink the same beer, and there’s no pressure to order anything more interesting than a burger.
65 W. Kinzie312-836-0290blackfinnameripub.com
