Location, location, location.  Whenever somebody moves into a new state, city, or neighborhood, it’s always about location.  Is public transportation nearby?  How faraway is your job?  How about your friends?  How about your girlfriend?  Grocery store?  But if you’re young, you’re probably thinking about where you hang out.  There’s bookstores, restaurants, coffee shops, but, most importantly, you’re thinking about “the scene.”  Clubs and bars.  Is your neighborhood trendy and have a lot of nightlife?  Maybe older people don’t consider this, especially if they have families or children they’d rather move out to the suburbs.  However, twenty-somethings are definitely thinking of being where all the action is. 

            Back in November, I moved into the north side Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park.  This is a neighborhood with a huge reputation for its nightlife and bar scene.  Every single night of the week, bars are open and people are crowding into them.  Every hour of the night, somebody’s out having a good time.  Basically put, the neighborhood never sleeps.  With all the young hipsters this attracts, a number of trendy coffee shops, clothing stores, bookstores, and art galleries have grown up around Wicker Park.  While more families, couples, and older people have moved in recent years, there’s still a huge amount of hustle and bustle.  Wicker Park even borders Bucktown and the Ukrainian Village, two other neighborhoods known for their bar scenes.  In fact, all three neighborhoods together comprise one big bar scene.  In fact, the next nearest neighborhood is Lincoln Park where DePaul University has its campus.  Naturally, this are attracts a large amount of young people and even more bars at a reasonable distance from Wicker Park dot the scene. 

            I myself prefer hanging out at the various rock bars.  They’re not always the cleanest and might actually be considered dives, but they play the music I like, my friends hang out there, and I feel at home.  On a typical night of bar-hopping, I’ll start off at the Cobra Lounge, which sits on the fringes of the Ukrainian Village at the intersection of Ashland and Fulton, which is a mere fifteen minutes from my apartment on North Avenue.  This is the most upscale of the rock bars on the scene and also the youngest in terms of age.  From there, I take Ashland to Fullerton in Lincoln Park to that infamous dive called Liars Club.  The front door looks ready to fall off its hinges and the stairs are warped, but it s a cozy, warm place where they never overcharge the drinks. 

 Occasionally, I might make a side trip to the Mutiny on Western Avenue in Bucktown or Quenchers, which across the street, but I’m not really a regular at either.  Mostly, I’ll only go to see a band that’s playing.  However, I always end the night at Exit, which is down North Avenue at Throop and stays open until four (five on Saturday nights).  Open since 1981, Exit is dressed up to look like a dive, but its two floors, four actual bars, chains on the walls, and loud punk rock and metal.  It’s sort of like the theme park of bars.  Even if they always overcharge their drinks, I’ve always had a good time there.

Those are just my preferences though.  There are more than enough bars in the area for everyone, even people with far different tastes than me.