Halsted Harp

My favorite place in Chicago. Great food, great drinks, great atmosphere… and more importantly great people! I love to Harp it up…

Closed. :(

I’ve come to really love going to the Harp.
Great Food all around! The fish and chips are best. Burgers are good, and wings are damn good.
Also, great place to watch the SLU Billikens!
They always have a great selection of beers and specials.
You have to check them out; Garrett and his staff are top notch!

I went in on a Sunday night when the weather was exceptionally crappy so the pub was practically empty. HOWEVER I would like to give a shout out to Johnny Vegas, who was bartending. He did an awesome job and helped me along in my solo Irish pub crawl :)

Irish breakfast is as good as it gets. Il compare it to the English breakfast which I’m very familiar with after living in the UK for many years. 5 stars for this amazing hearty breakfast! De-$&@*#%-licious!!!

Love this place. Awesome atmosphere, great food and music. Always a good time!!! Bartenders are all friendly and know how to enjoy their job and establishment :-)

Garret is awesome. He always takes care of us after our Tuesday night volleyball games. he always remembers our food and drink orders and always takes great care of us.
food is also pretty good here, I normally order the fish and chips, the burgers and wings. all are awesome. Also, try the pulled pork quesadillas, those are awesome!
they also have a bunch of beers on tap and it’s usually a good selection.
so if you’re looking for a sponsor bar for your sports leagues, this is the place to go. Garret will take care of you.

This place is really cool! I can’t believe I’ve overlooked it for so long. It’s huge inside and really authentic Gaelic décor, and big roomy booths. Absolutely perfect to bring a group with and watch a game. The food is delicious, traditional Irish pub fare, and is above and well beyond any bar food in the area. The best part– the amazing owners/​bartenders. Either by coincidence, or concious hire, the staff is mostly Ireland natives. And if you have ever been to Ireland, u know how lovely and friendly the people of the country are. Just so warm and welcoming. I will be back simply to hear the accents of the staff haha. You will absolutely love this pub and never want to leave. I think this place may become my new home!

Inconspicuous little place on Halsted in the heart of the shopping block. Popped in for a quick drink on a Saturday afternoon and found it to be pretty empty. One bartender, nice dewd.
They had pretty good drink specials for $ 4. I had the homemade bloody mary which came with a nice little slice of bacon (that always warrants one extra star on Unilocal).
We also ordered the Irish curry chips which we promptly substituted with tator tots = Irish curry tots = best idea ever.
Would love to come back and try their Irish breakfast and perhaps do a little day drinking eh?

I had a bad experience that I won’t elaborate on, but I will be back to give them another shot. The owners care to correct the problem and that means a lot to me as their customer.

Although I’ve never eaten here, it is everything you could expect from an Irish pub. It has a very dim interior with typical irish décor, and a plethora of beers on tap. Halsted Harp is better than other irish pubs I’ve been to in the area.
We came early for trivia night, which we totally didn’t have to do because the place was empty. There ended up being only one other team playing trivia– and we still lost.
The drinks weren’t too expensive and The service is what you would expect. And although it was a weekday, there was definitely not enough of a crowd.

I first visited Halsted Harp on a visit to Chicago to see a friend before I moved here. The only things I remember about this visit was good beer and rawish bacon on my burger.
The BF and I came here this past Tuesday (New Years Day) for lunch. It wasn’t the most stellar way to start the New Year and in fact the BF used the phrase «I just wasted a hangover meal on that» on the way home.
We got the chicken quesadilla which was pretty good and came with sour cream, guac, and salsa — bonus. My sprite tasted funny so I got a new one … still tasted funny. BF got the buffalo chicken sandwich and wasn’t too impressed — he is somewhat of an expert on the buffalo chicken front at this point. I got the chicken and bacon wrap and wasn’t thrilled. The bacon was a little under once again, and the ranch all pooled into the bottom of each half of the wrap making the top half dry and the bottom half soggy. The fries were definitely the star of our meals –yum!
Also, despite being one of three tables in the place the service was somewhat slow.
I think I would come back but stick to drinks and maybe the appetizers. This looks like a great bar, but maybe not the best restaurant.

20 years later and I feel like I am living my DePaul years… wow am I getting old!
The bar looked amazing from the outside. I kept thinking this place is going to be fancy and then I opened the door and was reminded of my college years. Yes drunk college students can be rough on a bar interior… too many shots and too much dancing on the furniture can lead to this. The bar stools have seen better days… some had holes in the cushions and others were really shaky but that is expected when most of your customers are drunk college students.
I went on a Friday night and it was Karaōke Night. I arrived at around 9pm and there were not many people in side. A couple of large groups started arriving around 10ish. The DJ seemed to have some issues setting up. He was suppose to start at 10pm but did not start until 10:30pm. He was also having issues with the flat screen showing the lyrics but I was not singing so I did not have to worry about this. The speaker also sounds like it might have been blown too… you only hear crackle like that from records. I hope that they get this guy for real cheap because if they do not then they are getting ripped off.
Now let’s talk about the singing talent in this bar. You know those bars that have Karaōke and all of the singers are incredible like American Idol? Well do not worry because this bar is not one of those places. Wow there was some bad singing going on in here. My favorite was this guy that looked exactly like John Belushi from Animal House. His group of buddies must have told him he was a great singer or they were really really drunk from all of the shots they were doing. The DJ kept turning John Belushi’s microphone down and letting the back up vocals do most of the work. In fact, I noticed the DJ doing this for most of the singers here. The bad part is that I was close enough to hear the real vocals coming out of the real live singers.
There was a great drink special on Friday night. $ 4 Harps can make me happy any day. The bartender was nice and very attentive to keep checking on me even thought the large group of guys were doing mega rounds of shots at the other end. Even the bar back was nice enough to get me another drink because they were really dominating her time.
I am giving this place 4 stars because it reminds me of my college days at DePaul. It was nice to have a flashback into my life and times in Lincoln Park. I also enjoyed the bad singers because everyone loves the bad singers on American Idol too… I just wish I could have had a mic to offer my critique just like Simon would.

We stopped in here after a wonderful dinner for a couple of beers. It was a Thursday night and a couple of guys were playing some pretty good acoustic covers. I like the large beer selection and the overall vibe of the place. I will definitely return.

Bubble hockey is the most underrated and under utilized bar game in the nightlife business and they have it. Paired with their MyTouchTunes system that you can play music on the jukebox from your iPhone, and this place barely needs to serve beer to be awesome.
Fortunately they do have plenty of options in the booze department. Served by some of the most down to earth staff you’ll ever experience, this place is a neighborhood bar at its finest.

I went here yesterday for my birthday after having walked by it a few weeks before and noticing that it looks like a nice play to grab a beer and burger.
The bar is fun, clean, and genuinely Irish. The food was great (buffalo shrimp appetizer, harp burger for me and the Walnut Asian salad for my girlfriend)! The water tasted odd, but the beer selection is good, and we drank more of that than the water.
The bartender/​waiter was friendly. The food came out somewhat slow, given the time of day but it was worth the mini-​wait. Both my girlfriend and I plan on going back, though we do wish their beer prices were more inline with some other bars in the area especially on Lincoln Ave. That being said, people should still come and enjoy this place.

Disclaimer: I am a regular at Halsted Harp and for good reason! I love this place. They have a great selection of quality beers on tap for very cheap! They also have the best chicken fingers tossed in buffalo sauce around and their wings are amazing (only $ 3 dollars for a dozen on Tuesdays, wow!).
I just can’t say enough great things about this place. The bartenders are great, two really cool guys who moved from Ireland, which is why it’s such a great Irish bar!
Karaōke on Friday’s is awesome. The host is actually a great singer and performer, and steps in when there is a lag in requests.
LOVE this place. I will definitely be back on a regular basis.

What’s not to like?
–Dome hockey machine! although it is often broken :(
–Karaōke many nights a week
–Good specials on drinks
–The staff has always been nice
–You can almost always find a place to sit down
–Easily accessible from the brown line
Will definitely be back again for some more dome hockey!

It was raining hard. We had just finished having dinner down the street and this was the first bar we came upon. We desperately needed to seek refuge and warmth. Little did I realize, my friend and I would be the only patrons in the place. No music, just the sound for a college football game.
Yes. I should have known better. Bartender was Irish and friendly enough. The scene didn’t get interesting until a guy came in and sat at the bar. He started making conversation with the bartender about how he used to work there way back when the place was a dump and owned by someone else. The stories were pretty crazy. I feel bad for people who drank out of the tappers or ordered shots when that cheapskate was running the joint.
Let’s not beat around the bush. This place is nothing special, just a local Lincoln Park bar. They did have a little hockey game in the back by the bathrooms that was pretty sweet. Other than that, I don’t think you’ll find me frequenting this place. I’m sure the DePaul kids dig it.

I stopped by Halsted Harp with Jennie T. for lunch today.
The place was completely empty (only one other person was there and he had finished eating as we were walking in) on a Sunday afternoon. It took about two minutes to get the attention of the server, but we were promptly seated thereafter.
I noticed the $ 4 well drink special, so I ordered a scotch and soda. After looking at the menu, I decided on the Irish Breakfast ($ 11.95) and Jennie ordered the Guinness Beef Stew ($ 9.95).
The portions for both dishes were pretty large and generous. The Irish Breakfast was standard fare (eggs, bangers, white and black sausage, potatoes, beans, and tomato), as was the Guinness Stew. I was a big fan of my dish, but I was actually hoping for a lot more black and white sausage – I ended up getting a small morsel of each, which is a shame since black (blood) sausage is one of my all-​time favorite foods. Aside from that, everything on the plate was on point. Jennie was more or less happy with her Beef Stew, but the potatoes and celery seemed to be off (the potatoes were under-​cooked and a bit dry and starchy and the celery was overcooked and completely stringy).
The service was average. We were literally the only people eating at the time and were checked on every five minutes or so. No complaints there.
TL;DR — Order the Irish Breakfast; nice drink special; and decent service.