Jackhammer

Went for TUFF and was told to buy online tickets in advance. There was a HUGE line to get into the bar for those presale tickets. Seems to kind of miss the point of buying presale tickets? The coat check line and the line to get into the hole were a HOT MESS. It took us about 30 minutes to even get moving to the middle of the line for the hole. I eventually left because I just couldn’t justify wasting more time for it. BUT…the whole place has a nice grunge feel that I liked and it’s great for the neighborhood. Love being able to get out of Boystown/Andersonville for once. It was my first time and wasn’t pleased with the TUFF event. I’ll have to come back on a night that doesn’t feature a large event like TUFF.

A joke . This place is wildly mismanaged . Coat check takes eons. The dress code for the door seems wildly random and seemingly based on whatever the door guy is feeling at the moment. Don't waste your time here you'll be better off waiting in line at the supermarket on a Sunday night.

Love lip service karaoke nights. The DJ and the host are great people and make for a great night. My partner usually gets beers for himself and I generally am sober so I pay and tip for virgin drinks and sodas for myself. I also got *free* regular tap water in a glass on top of this. Tonight (Feb 28, 2024) we came as usual for lip service and with my partner's first can of PBR he asked for a glass of tap water for me. The bartender refused him and said the bar "doesn't do that" and he can only get water bottles which were $3 per bottle. Funny thing is he later saw several other people get glasses of tap water with no issues whatsoever. This was after he bought 3 bottles of water. When he pointed this out he FINALLY got a single glass of tap water. It was already ridiculous that sodas and juices were charged nearly the same as mixed drinks/cocktails, but LITERAL TAP WATER??? I can't imagine that this was not a problem with us as individuals because it makes no sense to reject specifically us and not others around us. My partner bought about 3 or 4 cans of PBR, by the way, on top of the 3 bottles of water. Totally gross service at the front bar despite everything else being cool. Edit: Yikes on bikes at that owner response. Apparently buying soda and juice isn't enough to justify free tap water. The bartender didn't tell my boyfriend that even though I wasn't with him when he bought his *first* BEER. We only didn't buy juice and soda this time BECAUSE the bartender made it seem like we would have to pay for BOTH bottled water and juice/soda. Plus, when I told people how much juices and sodas cost (about $4-5) my friends who were there informed me that they usually pay $5-7 or so for their drinks. Maybe I misremembered/misunderstood and it was not mixed drinks they mentioned, but they definitely got defensive for me that non-alcoholic drinks shouldn't cost nearly the same as alcoholic ones.

Great space. Staff was welcoming and very helpful. The scenery is pretty nice too

Staff is very good and the pit is okay. Do wish, however, there was more TGNC-accepting patronage. Would recommend but unfortunately not if u aren’t a hypermasculine white (or a token of color) muscle bear

There was a lot of fluid around

Despite claiming to be inclusionary, we were denied entry to the lower level. We read the rules and visited your website and facebook page before coming, to check the theme and for any events or rule changes. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. We've been here before the pandemic, and after, and are aware of the dress code policy. We brought friends from out of town, just to come to your bar, primarily to enjoy the lower level. There were four of us, two of which could have passed the code without undressing. We were going to use the coat check downstairs. There is no way to know what we had on under our winter clothes as it was below freezing outside. Also, underwear isn't a fetish? We were told it was the remodel that changed being able to let us in, which is not true, since we had no issues getting in previously. We were offered a coupon to go next-door and purchase gear. Like, what? So, we go ask them if they could explain what would get us in, and got a conflicting explanations (to the hole guard's, and their own) on why we couldn't enter your space, including "looking like a skinhead would get us in" and "getting in trouble with the city" and "because of covid" and "the policy is stupid" Like what?? If you are going to practice discrimination and try to gatekeep your own exclusive space, denying entry without an explanation that makes any sense, good luck with that business practice. Hopefully, others read this and don't waste their time trying to be "included". If you don't fit into their profile and look, you are not welcome here. (You're welcome for this feedback): Also, we had a small sling fanny pack and there was no mention of searching it or checking it as we entered until we were enjoying ourselves upstairs, only to be interrupted with the need to pay to check it? We were finishing our drinks and were heading downstairs(so we thought, only to be denied entry) where we planned to check the bag. Understand the need to search/check bags as everyone needs to be kept safe, but we made it all the way into your bar! What if we had something in the bag with bad intent? Figure that out. Hopefully, this review helps someone.