One of my good friends, Billy, from undergrad was in Chicago this past weekend on business. It was his first trip to Chicago, so we went around the city eating and doing Chicago things. As a person who grew up in the suburbs of the city and now as a resident, I sometimes forget to take advantage of all the opportunities Chicago has to offer. It’s nice when an out-of-towner comes and forces me to be a tourist for a day.
Deep-dish pizza is obviously a Chicago classic and a must for any tourist. I researched the best deep-dish places and decided to take Billy to Pequod’s Pizza in Lincoln Park.
So much pizza!
This exposed brick and Black Hawks decorated pizzeria had the exact Chicago vibe I was trying to share. Billy ordered his personal pan pizza with mushrooms, onions, and spinach. Needless to say, I think he liked it.
DEAL ALERT: they have a fantastic weekday lunch special: 7-inch personal pizza with a soda or draft beer for $5!
After, we went to the Goose Island Brewery down the street. While the brewery does offer tour and tastings, we opted to go hang out at the bar and chat. We ordered a flight to sample four of the 20 different beers. Billy is a beer lover so I let him do the ordering. As you can see from the photo, we ordered the Oscar, Harvest, Regent’s, and Hard Stance.
Our beer flight
We spent our evening at Oktoberfest in the neighborhood East Lake View. Some of my other friends met us there and we hung out and ate bratwurst with sauerkraut. The fest had a fantastic live band that played cover songs.
They did this power song for 30 minutes and every minute was a different song. It was classic goodies like “I wish I had Jesse’s Girl” an “Summer of ‘69.” It was perfect because each song was only one minute so it was the most popular part of each song and everyone knew all the words. Essentially it was just one 30-minute sing-along song. My friends and I didn’t leave until the band closed and two of us lost our voices from singing so hard. Again, DEAL ALERT it only cost five dollars to get in!
The festival and you can see the stage in the back
Billy is now gone and back home and it was sad to see him go. But we had a fantastic weekend eating and exploring the city!
Questions for Amie? Email law-admissions [at] luc [dot] edu with the subject “Ask Amie” and she will make sure to answer them.