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The little upstairs bar at Huckleberry Pub (2327 NW Kearney St., 228-5553, huckleberrypub.com)
has the feeling of a mountain refuge. Not just because we visited this
wood-toned space in a converted home just off Northwest 23rd Avenue on a
day when the streets were sheeted in layers of crisp snow and glacial
traffic. This is your country grandma's gently boozy attic, with a
comfort-food menu that includes beet sliders and stuffed squash. All
that cozy domesticity makes it an unlikely sports bar, but this is how
the space is being used, with flat-screen TVs posted in odd locations
about the bar's walls, tuned to various basketball games or, on request,
the sordid and bewildering spectacle of the Sochi Olympics' opening
ceremony. The bar's cocktail menu is dotted with drinks flavored with
huckleberry, apparently a family obsession of the pub owners. But the
I'm Your Huckleberry ($8), a vodka drink with both huckleberry simple
and whole huckleberries, was cloyingly syrupy, its bittersweetness cut
by lime like a toothpick in Jell-O. The toddy ($8)—named for Dolph
Lundgren—was treacly, the whiskey and orange lemon mixed as if Metamucil in
kettle water. Stick to the simple comforts of a $6 early happy-hour
burger and a pint of Oakshire winter ale. To the guy demolishing some
gravy fries while watching Creighton do the same to DePaul, the bar's
more upmarket ambitions weren't at issue: Just don't change that damn
television channel.
WWeek 2015