Bartistics: Quantifying the Best Northwestern Bars

Sherman Ave editor Evander Jones teamed up with food blog What I’m Eating for Lunch’s curator Jameson Bulwinkle to provide a comprehensive statistical analysis—or bartistical analysis, if you will—of the Evanston and Chicago bars most frequently frequented by Northwestern undergraduates. But first, an explanation of the bartistical categories analyzed by Evander and Jameson:

Yelp Rating: How many Yelp starts the bar received, out of a maximum potential of five. Distance from the Arch: As estimated in walking distance by Google Something Maps. Best Weekly Special: The best available special the bar offers on a day of the week. VORN: Value Over Replacement Night. This bartistic measures how much more valuable the bar’s weekly special night is compared to a random night at the same bar given the same blood alcohol content. A VORN of 5.4, for instance, means that the bar’s weekly special night is 5.4 times better than a random non-special average night at the same bar. Food, Ambiance, and Drinks: All subjective scores, out of a maximum of ten points, assigned by Evander and Jameson. OoS: Odds of Scoring. What is the percentage chance of an average Northwestern student patron hooking up with another patron from the bar? BPT: Biddies per Townie. What is the ratio of biddies to townies at the bar? ABP: Average beer price. ABP’s with asterisks are actual average prices, not estimates.

BAR LOUIE Situated next door to the shallow grave of the remnants of the Keg, Bar Louie serves American food for Americans looking to reenact the corporate environment of their day job. Yelp Rating: 3.0 Distance from the Arch: 0.5 Best Weekly Special: Wednesday—Dollar Beer Night VORN: 8.95. Tuesday dollar burgers also receives a VORN of 8.95 Food: 6.6 Ambiance: 5.8 Drinks: 7.3 OoS: 32% BPT: 0.91 ABP: $4.75 Overall Rating: Bar Louie’s food and drink matches its suburban locale: Bland, affordable, and full of bickering parents.

BAT 17 Bat 17 serves sandwiches as big, thick, and meaty as Morty’s appendage. They also doubled their size with a side-room dedicated to Fitz. The beer towers are just what they sound like: towers of beer. Yelp Rating: 4.0 Distance from the Arch: 0.5 Best Weekly Special: Wednesday--$3 Miller Lite pints, $20 Miller Lite pitchers VORN: 1.32 Food: 8.7 Ambiance: 6.9 Drinks: 7.8 OoS: 47% BPT: 0.83 ABP: $6.12* Overall Rating: Similar to a Northwestern education, Bat 17 is expensive but probably worth it.

BUFFALO WILD WINGS SPORTS! WINGS! BEER! EPILEPSY! Yelp Rating: 2.5 Distance from the Arch: 0.5 Best Weekly Special: Thursday—50 cent boneless wings VORN: 2.26 Food: 5.9 Ambiance: 6.1 Drinks: 3.9 OoS: 3% BPT: 0.76 ABP: $4.25 Overall Rating: There may be joints with better wings, but few other places let you watch Jay Cutler get sacked on over 50 big screen TVs at once.

CELTIC KNOT They call their fries 'chips' and serve something called a 'scotch egg.' Eat the chips, skip the egg. Yelp Rating: 3.5 Distance from the Arch: 0.3 Best Weekly Special: Tuesday—Celtic Music Seisiun with Gus: All Musicians Welcome! VORN: -8.65 Food: 7.2 Ambiance: 8.5 Drinks: 7.4 OoS: 20% BPT: 0.57 ABP: $5.37* Overall Rating: Like listening to The National or riding the Metra, drinking at the Knot will make you feel like a real adult.

CHEESIE’S Mouthgasms in ways you've never had mouthgasms before. Yelp Rating: 3.0 Distance from the Arch: 0.4 Best Weekly Special: IT’S A RESTAURANT SPECIALIZING IN GOURMET GRILLED CHEESE WITH A FULL BAR OPEN UNTIL 3AM VORN: ANY NIGHT THAT ENDS AT CHEESIE'S IS BETTER THAN A RANDOM AVERAGE NIGHT Food: 8.3 Ambiance: 8.1 Drinks: 5.4 OoS: 66.67% BPT: 2.30 ABP: $4.25 Overall Rating: Nutritionally speaking, it’s BK with a bar. College!!!

CHILI’S Chili's is basically the Skøl of restaurants--it gets the job done, but nobody's terribly happy about it. Yelp Rating: 3.5 Distance from the Arch: 0.5 Best Weekly Special: All-Day Happy Hour Monday through Thursday (although thanks to the oppressive laws of Lizzy Tizzy, happy hour can’t legally start until 11 am) VORN: 0.85, as happy hour increases the likelihood that you’ll inadvertently eat the food served at Chili’s. Food: 4.8 Ambiance: 4.1 Drinks: 6.3 OoS: 0.05% BPT: 0.437 ABP: $4 Overall Rating: I FEEL GOD IN THIS CHILI’S TONIGHT!!

THE DEUCE Also known as the Mark II Lounge, what the Deuce lacks in things like "class" or "proximity," it more than makes up for with free pizza and security guards whose primary responsibilities include keeping people from dancing on pool tables and ignoring identification. Yelp Rating: 3.0 Distance from the Arch: 2.9 Best Weekly Special: Thursday—Free pizza. Although maybe that’s every day. But why would you go on any day besides Thursday? VORN: 13.42 Food: 0.6 Ambiance: 3.4 Drinks: 5.6 OoS: 73% BPT: 9.33333333 ABP: $3.75 Overall Rating: II Thumbs Up

JT’S BAR AND GRILL Location is key for a bar. Too bad nobody told JT this when he built a bar in between Cheesie's and World of Beer. Yelp Rating: 3.5 Distance from the Arch: 0.4 Best Weekly Special: Does Wednesday trivia count? VORN: 1.08 Food: 8.1 Ambiance: 6.5 Drinks: 7.4 OoS: 28% BPT: 1.05 ABP: $4.75 Overall Rating: On a scale of James Taylor to Justin Timberlake, JT's Bar and Grill is somewhere between the two.

The Keg Surely enough words have been spilled on this website to give you a good sense of what the Keg was all about. RIP, good friend. Yelp Rating: 2.5 Distance from the Arch: 0.6 Best Weekly Special: Keg Mondays VORN: 28.76 Food: 0.3 Ambiance: 9.7 Drinks: 3.2 OoS: 98% BPT: 6.84 ABP: $3.50 Overall Rating: Shitty college bars never die. They just get hacked into little pieces and thrown into the Skokie River by the mayor of a Puritanical village hell-bent on destroying fun and happiness and bars catering to high schoolers.

McFADDEN’S A Michigan State-themed bar, McFadden's is an excellent place to meet DePaul kids and learn what actual college is like. Yelp Rating: 2.5 Distance from the Arch: 10.8 Best Weekly Special: Wednesday--$1 Domestic Drafts VORN: 3.89 Food: 6.0 Ambiance: 6.0  Drinks: 4.9 OoS: 60% BPT: 3.78 ABP: Let’s be honest. Are you really going to buy anything besides a $1 beer? Overall Rating: McFadden's lives up to its alma mater by always failing to meet pre-season expectations.

McGEE’S The slight difference between McGee's and McFadden's becomes even further blurred the longer you spend at either. Yelp Rating: 3.0 Distance from the Arch: 9.2 Best Weekly Special: Friday—All you can eat and $20 for 8 drink tickets VORN: 7.39 Food: 3.4 Ambiance: 7.0 Drinks: 7.3 OoS: 64% BPT: 2.95 ABP: $3.75 Overall Rating: Apparently, bars are one of the bright spots of the Irish economy.

NEVIN’S The only thing better than watching townies and belligerent students navigate one another at Nevin's is witnessing the 300 lb. man who self-identifies as "Hustla" clean up on the pool table. Yelp Rating: 3.0 Distance from the Arch: 0.6 Best Weekly Special: Saturday--$4 Grey Goose u-call-its, $3 Bud and Bud Light drafts VORN: 5.86 Food: 6.8 Ambiance: 8.2 Drinks: 7.7 OoS: 38% BPT: 1.28 ABP: $4.25 Overall Rating: Nevin’s is like a real pub in Ireland, just with a few more alcoholics.

PETE MILLER’S With steaks juicier than Jennifer Lopez and prices higher than a Dillo Day backup headliner, Pete Miller's is a consultant's wet-dream. Yelp Rating: 3.5 Distance from the Arch: 0.5 Best Weekly Special: LOL VORN: 1.00 Food: 9.7 Ambiance: 7.3 Drinks: 8.1 OoS: 350% BPT: 0.95 ABP: $5.92* Overall Rating: Counting down the days till a Parents’ Weekend when we’re 21 to try it!

PRAIRIE MOON Prairie Moon is apparently a real bar with real patrons. This is about all we could find out throughout our exhaustive internet research. Go figure! Yelp Rating: 3.5 Distance from the Arch: 0.6 Best Weekly Special: You can get $2.50 Schlitz, I guess? VORN: 1.01 Food: 7.5 Ambiance: 6.4 Drinks: 8.0 OoS: 17% BPT: 0.39 ABP: $10.37* Overall Rating: Walk the extra half-block and go to Nevin’s.

WORLD OF BEER Once described as looking like "a man's mid-life crisis," Wob's 500 beers to choose from ensures that at least one is sure to remind you of the wife/children/client you should be spending your time with. Yelp Rating: 3.0 Distance from the Arch: 0.5 Best Weekly Special: Thursday—Half-off select drafts VORN: 2.63 Food: 0.8 (although WOBers are allowed to bring in food from other places) Ambiance: 5.8 Drinks: 9.8 OoS: 35% BPT: 1.84 ABP: $6.50 Overall Rating: Do you like beer? Like, do you really like beer? Then this is the place for you.