Old Chicago

With various locations around the US and in Omaha, Old Chicago offers assorted bar food, pastas and pizza alongside an extensive beer list. Happy Hour is Monday - Friday from 3pm-6pm, with daily late night specials from 10pm to close. Specials include crispy tavern bites, assorted appetizers like mozzarella cheese sticks or nachos grande and $1 off pints, $3 well cocktails, $4 OC iced teas or house wines and $5 U.S. or daily special tall drafts.

The interior is pretty standard no matter which location you visit. I stopped at one while I was in Aurora, Colorado and it was almost identical to the one up the street from my apartment. Lots of seating around the bar area, separate dining room that’s quiet and lots of sports memorabilia. Like I’ve said before, everything you expect from a “chain” brewery.

I tried one of this location’s specialty ½ and ½ beers. The Beachhouse IPA had both Dry Dock Apricot Blonde and Firestone Union Jack IPA. I really enjoyed this combo, the apricot blonde offset the IPA nicely and made it tolerable (not a fan normally).Great summer beer and I’m going to have to have my dad ship me some Dry Dock Apricot Blonde at some point.

I then tried the crispy jalapeno cheese ravioli ($3: creamy jalapeno cheese stuffed fried ravioli, sprinkled with parmesan and romano cheese and served with zesty pizza sauce). I really like fried ravioli and was excited to try this twist. The raviolis weren’t greasy and the sprinkled cheese gave it a nice crunch. The filling wasn’t very spicy which was quite disappointing and the flavor profile was weird after you dipped it in the pizza sauce. Worth an experimental try but probably wouldn’t get it again.

Next I had the pretzel bites ($3: freshly baked jalapeno pretzel bites served with beer cheese sauce) which were a huge disappointment. Despite being jalapeno pretzel bites they weren’t spicy at all. I could see little pieces of jalapeno but no spice transferred apparently. The beer cheese sauce was mediocre, more velveeta than any beer cheese I’ve ever had. The pretzels did come out warm and weren’t too hard. The “beer cheese” on the other hand was cold upon arrival.

I give Old Chicago 1.5 smiles. I’m game to try more of their beer selection and they had other food items I thought were intriguing. Would never get the pretzels or ravioli again however.