Trail Of Beers: Bar-hopping in the West Side wastelands
In the West Side, you'll take what you can get.
Certain expanses of Madison's arid West Side have long been a desert to the bar hopper, offering few friendly watering holes in a vast plain populated mostly by corporate installations (Chili's) or even tackier franchises (The Tilted Kilt). Yet amidst all the airport-bar-like haunts filled with unpleasant divorcees and leathery gym rats, there are some worthy saloons, as The A.V. Club discovered.
Village Bar
The Village Bar is a good first stop out if you are heading west, and the place to be for the first snowfall of the year. Not only is it a genial, welcoming place with great bar food, but from a perch at the bar, it's hours of entertainment: Every year, serial speeders freak out coming around the corner of Mineral Point Road and Glenway Street skid on the snow, trying to avoid getting hung up on the guardrail overlooking the golf course despite posted warnings.
Divorcee ratio: Relatively low. It's 90 percent old guys talking about sports.
Edible food? Village Bar grills up some of the best cheeseburgers in town—Jerry Seinfeld enjoyed one while in town for a stand-up show in 2005.
Pitcher’s Pub
This vast underground space could double as a money-laundering hideout. On paper, it has everything—super-giant plasma televisions, pool tables, a full menu of "Deep Fried Appetizers," and even a tap of SWAMPS, neon-green booze that tastes like random hard liquors mixed with limeade over ice. While Pitcher's Pub offers a place to catch a game and have a good time, good feelings may be undermined by the sense that its patrons really don't have anywhere else to go.
Divorcee ratio: 30 percent. Some customers are definitely just out for a good time, but others look a bit more frazzled.
Edible food? Definitely, and the food is redemptive. Plenty of sandwiches are available from the full kitchen, and the french fries are life-affirming, with perfectly crisped exteriors giving way to buttery soft potato goodness.
Le Tigre
This fascinating Madison institution sits nearly under the Beltline, is done up in tiger-print decor, and hums with a pleasing retro-chic buzz. It's the kind of joint where you order a highball, the bartender doesn't permit swearing, and Ol' Blue Eyes is on the jukebox. The kitschy appeal made Le Tigre popular enough that, before the smoking ban, a blanket of smoke made it hard to see the other side of the room. Stories of losing companions inside the mist are legion. Though it has mellowed with age, Le Tigre still feels filled with intrigue, as if set inside a classic noir.
Divorcee ratio: Inestimable—but this is part of the magic.
Edible food? Does the Bloody Mary count?
The Old Town Pub keeps it real.Old Town Pub
Although somewhat dismal from the outside, the Old Town Pub has an interior that should feel homey to anyone seeking a shrine to Budweiser, the Packers, and television in the rec room. Every square foot of the walls is meticulously adorned with an impressive array of beer- and sports-related merchandise, and tiny televisions nestle under their larger brethren (football on the big screen, tennis on the littler ones). A washing machine wouldn't be out of place.
Divorcee ratio: 20 percent. With only five people there to psychoanalyze, the math was easy.
Edible food? A bar in a strip mall isn't a likely place to discover food worth seeking out, but the Reuben sandwich with sauerkraut and pickle is terrific.
