The Pony

Servers are rude… Don’t order food here. It’s mediocre and they take FOREVER to bring it out, not to mention it comes with attitude…

GREAT FOOD!!! The place is kinda small it’s literally just a place to have a drink and eat nothing else for being a bar

Basic sports bar in the far west lakeview area. Cool place to come and watch sports during the week because of decent beer deals, but definitely not a game changer bar for the neighborhood.

Favourite place when I get off work. Try their chicken sandwich and Bloody Mary!

Late night Pizza Slices??? I thought this place couldn’t get any better. I live pretty close to The Pony and I originally always thought it was kind of a duchy bar. Even though friday and sat nights it can be (just getting a little old for it), when is started coming on off days I realized it had a lot of charm. I really like their food (get the steak tacos), the staff is great, and now the offer late night pizza slices. I’m sold!

I used to live right across the street from the Pony, and am luckily still in walking distance. This is hands down my favorite place to watch the Hawks games in Chicago. They bring in a really great crowd that just makes the games that much better.
Their upstairs room is really cool because the roof contracts during the summer, which makes you feel like you’re on a patio when really you’re still inside. It brings in a nice breeze, and is perfect for spring/​summer/​early fall.
The food I would say is slightly better than average, not great but not horrible either. It’s just your standard bar food really… the chili and chicken sandwiches are my usual go to. My rating is for the over all atmosphere, service, and food quality.

Great food
Stephanie — Great service
Sarah — Awful Juggler
Entire staff is extremely thirsty… #Parched
Overall, great service, great staff. Will come back soon, but my never leave.

Definitely got a message from someone here apologizing for my experience and making sure to let me know that they have no problem accommodating every fan that they need to if there are overlapping games going on. Big props for that – I appreciate it very much.
I’ll be giving the Pony another go for a Hawks game soon. Food and beer selection were great so I’ve got nothing to lose. Thanks for reaching out Matt!

I am so happy that I was introduced to The Pony. I came here on a Friday night for an end of kickball celebration and I ended up having a great time. I never heard of this place so I had no expectations so the combination of a great witness and DJ made my night.
The Pony is very spacious and during the weekend they move the back tables to transform it into a dance floor. The DJ played a wide range of music from hip hop to 90’s boy band. The reason this DJ stood out from most is that he would stick to a certain genre of music if he saw the crowd dancing. Most DJ’s I’ve encountered will play two or three great songs and throw the groove off by playing a completely out of the blue song just because.
I will admit that we had a reserved section that came with one assigned witness so I cannot attest for the service outside of those parameters. The bartender wasn’t too friendly and made weak drinks when I didn’t get my drink through the assigned waitress.
The one downfall of my experience with The Pony is that they gave us reserved tables in the middle of the dance floor so we had to move all of our stuff after getting settled in. They ended up taking some of our tables away so the late comers to our group had to stand around awkwardly around our section.
I would definitely can see myself coming back to the Pony just for the music alone! I’m an instant fan and hope they live up to the hype the second time around.

We came here the other night for a few minutes just to grab a bit to eat! I really liked their special super long grilled cheese. It comes with tomato bisque for dipping and is the perfect shareable dish if you just want to snack on something before a long night out drinking with close buds!

So for starters, the other reviews are totally right in the lack of service and any type of ambiance for this place. The bartender stood around half naked just chatting up friends and ignoring everyone else. The barbacks were the only reason everyone didn’t just walk out because he did an amazing job running around and serving everyone. The girl bartender seriously looked like she just walked out of a strip club and just made me and my big group of girls uncomfortable. I get why you’d want to have an attractive girl behind the bar, but one with her entire bra out (her shirt was pulled down below her bra), hot pants, and not even trying to be helpful was an indication to us that they didn’t even want girls in this bar! Then we saw the manager getting drunk at a nearby table totally oblivious to what was going on. At that point we all left and will never return!
I would highly suggest this place to a sleazy guy who wants the experience of going to hooters but with only one person working and no service. With all the competition around this area, this place needs to re-​think their whole business.

Called to get reservations for the upcoming hawks game in advance, I’m told no reservations first come first serve!
Ok no problem, open at 4 get there 4:15 EVERY table has a reserved sign on it. Uhh? Not that many people in sight, oh ok I’ll just go ask and I’m sure they aren’t actually all reserved.
Nope, owner has reserved all tables for his personal use (friends, family, etc.).
So happy I wasted my precious table seeking time to a place that lied to me.

Terrible management and they don’t hold tables unless you know the owner. The manager said the owner only holds tables for his friends and he was super pissed because he turned away people who were actually there ready to start buying drinks. Manager also said owner was not working that night instead going to leave him and charge and take the night off. Been here before for the comedy shows upstairs, games, etc, but I’ll never be coming back since the owner thinks nothing of his paying frequent customers.

Came here for a hawks game… if it wasn’t for Alena it would have been terrible. Packed to the gills and she kept our rather large and rowdy group happy, hydrated, and in the zone. ¹⁰⁄₁₀ will return and I hope that Alena is there to make the experience great.

I came here for a large group event of ~100 people in which all of the food and drink was paid for by the group and everything was free for us using the wristband system. I’m writing from the perspective of an event-​goer, I was not a planner. The Pony actually had enough bartenders staffed so you never had to wait more than a few minutes for a drink, which was really nice. I go to quite a few large group events and it’s very clear when establishments are trying to limit their costs by making you wait forever to get a drink.
The food situation was a little confusing for some, because instead of putting all the food out at once, they would serve hot & fresh food very frequently. I appreciated this, because the food tasted good and was the right temperature. Of course, it’s still bar food. We had buffalo chicken sliders, some sort of Korean pork sliders, really good tacos, grilled cheese, and quesadillas. For bar food, it was all done exceptionally well. I’d recommend this place for your next event.

Have you ever had a job where it required team work but feels like you’re pulling most of the weight while the other team member (s) are kind of slacking off? Well I observed this last night.
We were at the upstairs bar watching the Bulls game. There was a guy and a girl bartender.
Girl: didn’t know the specials, wasn’t attentive or friendly, and was snooty. Dead weight.
Guy: knew the specials, was friendly and attentive, was running around cleaning up and putting chairs up on tables at the end of the night.
Other than that, the drinks are cheap and the TV’s aplenty with decent bar food.

The brunch buffet was what I had come for. They were advertising that this is a new addition to their bar that is one of my favorite places for burgers and fries. So why not brunch!
The start up needs some work but over all not bad. There was a communication issues between the kitchen and owners. Kitchen thought the brunch started at 12 and the ad said 11. So we sat here for 30 mins waiting for the start up.
Once the start happened though food was pretty good. The omelette station is amazing and it came out perfectly cooked! Just the way I like it. Thin but not too thin, and def not over cooked where you see the brown crisps of the egg. Kudos to the chef behind the station. The house made Bloody Mary mix is also very good! Probably one of the best I’ve had in the city. You can taste the tomatoes! None of that premix crap where it’s extra vinegary.
My feedback to this new addition is to have the set up ready when a advertised is one. Two, the biscuit’s gravy is a bit on the salty side which could happen when it sits out (water evaporates and salt stays). Three, the Bloody Mary and mimosa bar should be closer to the bar to avoid a cluster once this picks up. When people start moving toward the buffet the line may get chaotic and the DIY cocktail station is too close to the food where there might be way too many people in that corner.

Great spot for sports. Even as an ‘away fan’ this was a great bar for a large group.
Food was all around great and they were happy to have us as customers.

If you love getting beer spilled on you and definitely want to witness a fist fight every time you’re there, check out The Pony.

Great food and good service! Very clean place! Will definitely be back!

I was really excited to come here for my friends birthday because I haven’t been to many bars in this area but I wasn’t impressed at all. The bar is very narrow and long which means that no matter where you stand/​dance/​sit there is a constant stream of people either trying to get to the bathrooms and dance floor or trying to leave. The bar was so crowded that we were constantly getting run into and pushed around. The music was fine and they had an ok beer selection but it just couldn’t make up for the terrible design.

The only time I’ve come here is to kill time before a dinner reservation. The table service was a little slow, but there’s a decent drink selection. I haven’t tried the food yet.
Just come here to enjoy the feeling of being enclosed in wood everything!

Grits were salty and the wings were not that great. BBQ sauce was too sweet. Only reason I gave em 3 stars is because the bartender was extremely nice! Wine selection kinda sucks too. Use to love the grilled cheese from here tho.

I been here a several times and is always to watch the UK games. My friends are all fans of Uk. This is a known UK bar in chicago. They have many large screen to watch the game. Is a really nice bar, big but good. They have good beer specials on game days. The food is good also. I love the chicken wings there! So spicy and good (some of the best I had). The staff is really friendly. I’m sure I’ll be back for a UK game.

We moved to. Roscoe Village in the spring of 2014. After walking by this place many times we decided to try it out for some college football watching. The staff was very friendly and made sure one of the TVs had our game on. We wanted to watch Oregon v Stanford game and they were very accommodating, considering this was a Blackhawks bar and they were playing Toronto. We also split the Clydesdale, which may become habit forming. Kind of sad we didn’t try this place sooner, we will be back soon.
Our waitress was fantastic, I think her name was Marissa (sorry, not great at names). One thing we really appreciated is they bring water to your table and worked hard to refill your glass. Most bars do not do this.

Your average bar. Dark and somewhat small. There wasn’t too much going on on a Thursday night.
Food was alright. I got the shrimp and calamari wrap. Nothing horrible, nothing great. I ate endless amounts of waffle fries.
$ 3 angry orchard special on Thursdays.
Our waitress was nice. Accommodating to all of our requests. She split our bill for us, super considerate.