The farmhouse recalls a simpler time, when all a man needed was the company of laid-back folks, a connection with the Earth, and, like, seven kinds of veggie burritos. Dude...cluster flies. Providing more sophisticated, less crunchy enjoyment: Farmhouse.

Named for the unabashedly Midwestern easygoing atmosphere it aims to cultivate, Farmhouse is a two-story tavern eclectically outfitted with mostly salvaged items: old stained glass windows from Charlie's Ale House, an 8ft cylindrical '30s beer cooler known as a Bevador, and tables crafted out of carts from a defunct Southside furniture factory, made obsolete once Adam Dunn came to the area and started making stools with every at-bat. They're big on bar snacks, from a Wisconsin cheese ball w/ crispy baked crackers, to jars of baby pickles and housemade jerky, to beer nuts roasted in local honey, which, this being Chicago, stars a plumper Jessica Alba. Heartier pub fare includes beer-soaked venison bratwurst, the grass-fed Barnyard Burger topped w/ shaved Nueske ham and a fried farm egg, and seasonal pasties like a baked spinach 'n cheese joint with a caramelized cippolini onion 'n ale sauce, though it's more likely to make you stout.

As far as the better kind of sauce goes, there's draft wine from Michigan, which also supplies many of the 28 tap brews (along with Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin), while anything from further away is labeled an "import", just like the Subaru you bought for its ability to transport nine hundred thousand gooballs.