When giving your straight girlfriends lessons on gay bars, Roscoe's Tavern is where you take them for Introduction to Boystown 101. The crowd is a mix of cute, guppy, fresh-out-of-college gay men (and their straight friends) drinking in a fraternity-meets-disco type atmosphere. The average age ranges from twenty-one-year-olds on up to men in their thirties, but most are in the younger category.
It's a bar where you can relax, have a beer, shoot pool, and show your straight friends a good time without showing them the Advanced Gay Man 202 side of Boystown--strippers, go-go boys, and leather daddies (read as straight men are only slightly uncomfortable here). It feels a little more collegiate than anything else at the corner of Roscoe and Halsted, making it a good starter bar for those boys just coming out of the closet or those looking for a more Abercrombie existence.
The actual bar is split into various sections, some with pool tables, a main bar, a fireside chat room, a terrace, and a high-energy, poppy dance floor. The décor is almost gay Irish pub-ish, if there is such a thing. Video screens alternate between modern dance and '80s pop, the dance floor is usually a mix of shortened dance anthems and re-mixed top 40. Almost every night is a theme night, but most popular nights are the weekends and Sunday Tea, not a Tea dance, but specials on pitchers of Long Island Iced Tea. A particularly hot time to visit includes summertime softball Sundays when the Chicago gay sports leagues quench their thirsts after nine innings of play.
At the end of the night, once your straight girlfriends are ready to graduate, they'll have made all the usual remarks, "Oh my God, why can't straight guys dance like that?" and "Why are all gay men so cute?" Hand them their degrees and send them back to Lincoln Park. - Editor review
