Belford Tavern

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  Not much I can add to the few other reviews here.  A big schooner of domestic whatever (Miller Lite in my case) and a shot of Cuervo=$4.50 (and you may even get a free shot if you hang out long enough).  Perfect.  Opens at 7 a.m., if you must drink that early.  They have a lottery machine, lots of Slavic-y languages spoken, liquor and smokes to go (mostly reasonable), a friendly owner in Jimmy, and a parking lot, or the easiest access if you're waiting around for either bus.  The douchey night kids don't come here, it closes usually by 10:00 or so.

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  Posted on 08.21.09 Geoff H.

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  The extreme dive bar.  $2.00 MGD's everyday come in a giant fishbowl glass.  If you enjoy people watching and cheap adult beverages this is the place to be.  The lottery machine has a line all the time and they could build a house with all the loser tickets that get thrown out.  
  
  I didn't go in there until the smoking ban passed because you couldn't even see in the windows and I'm a partial smoker.  The bartender is a young guy and seems pretty legit.  It's never crowded and you can always get a seat at the counter.  
  
  I once saw a guy come in there in his boxers and no socks or pants.  He got a bottle of liquor and left.  Funniest thing ever.  A real person bar.  No yuppies allowed.

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  Posted on 03.23.09 Doug A.

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  This place looks just like a Greyhound station with one exception- they serve beer.  The beer is served in giant goblets, and is so inexpensive that a homeless guy living under a bridge could buy a couple of drinks to wile away his time staying in from the cold.  I actually had a really nice conversation with the guy, apparently a sincere hardworking fellow who happened to be out of a job.
  
  You might say a Yelpster has no business being here, but I disagree.  Maybe not a good place to meet other Yelpsters, but there's something this place holds on to that is gradually fading in trendier neighborhoods closer to the lake.  There's some truth in the notion that lower class are genuinely more friendly (now science has proven it!  See <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.windsorstar.com%2FTechnology%2FRich%2Bmore%2Baloof%2Bthan%2Bpoor%2BStudy%2F1262344%2Fstory.html&s=491767c16b5dd88be3bce70b39e7a5fd9fded87de321a7e6db69e265c711e19a" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.windsorstar.c…</a>).  Case in point- there's another regular here, commemorated in a Lucky Lottery poster, who won over a million bucks- and still drinks here.  Unlike my homeless friend, he has a reputation for tipping poorly.
  
  With Busch at $1.50, millionaires could buy 600,000 cans of this for just a million bucks.  But if you're here you might as well chat with your neighbors, who are just as likely as anyone to launch into a philosophical discussion, minus the Ivy-League vocabulary, about life itself.  When debates get tense, at the end of the day this is a bar where the regulars all know each other by name- they forgive and welcome you back the next day with a new nickname.  We're all human, after all- you may be worried about starting your car, I may worry about whether my CTA bus will ever show up, my homeless friend just hopes it's not too icy to roll his shopping cart back to his bridge.
  
  With all the open windows and the location at a major intersection, this place is consistently safe and friendly, especially compared to dives just south in Avondale.
  
  I drank out their supply of Zamkowe so they don't got that Polish classic anymore, but this place isn't running out of beer anytime soon.

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  Posted on 02.13.09 Rob R.

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  Parking lot in back.
    Back Door.  
       Local News is ALWAYS on one of the TVs.
          Order the 16oz bottle of polish beer.
  
  Best time to go is during day light so you can watch the corner, one of the best spots to observe the comings and goings of the work a day folk who put the work in the city that........
  
  YES it is a 'dive' but far from scary.  Always brightly lit and really bad plastic restaurant furniture.  To find a better place to drink and absorb true local culture you need to go to Archer Heights.
  
  Vintage cocktail tray behind the bar that says "If you are insulted by what we serve you PLEASE DRINK THE INSULT"

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  Posted on 01.05.09 Rick L.

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  Yelp pulled my first review (I have no idea why - I lived down the street from this place & all it said was " "I'm so scared of you, " which I am).
  Anyways, here's round 2.
  
  Its old school. Its creepy. Its part of a dying breed. Especially with the neighborhood changing.
  
  And somehow it landed in TOC's bar listings - I doubt your everyday TOC reader would give two shits about this place. Yes, its cheap but that doesn't mean its any good.
  
  Please flag this review (only need three people) so Yelp removes it again and I get some ridiculous form email from San Fran.
  
  Cheers!

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  Posted on 08.12.08 Jess S.

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  "Woohoo! As good as it gets!"
  
  ^ This is pretty true for the instance I went there.
  
  I live right down the street for the last year, always looked in, but had never went there.  
  
  I walked in, sat down,  said what's up to the bartender who was a younger dude.  
  
  I asked for an MGD, which was their $2 special every day.  He brought me this giant goblet of goldeny amazingness.
  
  Some people there say the crowd is older.  I chatted it up with a younger guy and a girl who were nice dudes.
  
  After a free shot of Rumpleminz and another beer, I decided i'd be coming back many, many times.  I'd probably go if I had to drive, but I can see the place from my house, so, game on.
  
  The people are nice, the older dudes stared at me like they wanted to kill me, but what do you want in Avondale?
  
  Apparently a Tanq and Tonic is $3
  
  Seriously?
  
  See you tonight.   Ha.

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  Posted on 08.07.08 ashley H.

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  The regal-sounding Belford Tavern keeps with the long, strange Chicago tradition of naming businesses on the streets they intersect near.  The Beachwood Inn (Beach & Wood Streets), the Bel-Long Pantry (Belmont & Long), even Sears' Homart brand (Homan & Arthington, where the old Sears HQ once stood) are all shining examples.  The Belford, at Belmont & Pulaski, was around before the name change from Crawford Avenue to Pulaski Road by Mayor Ed Kelly in 1933.
  
  I challenge each and every one of you that has claimed to step foot in a dive bar to try this place out.  I am a seasoned veteran of many, many decrepit, stinky, dank, and downright scary joints.  I have seen things that would make Travis Bickle's skin crawl.  And this, my friends, is the diviest of all of the watering holes I've ever seen.
  
  I knew when I moved into the neighborhood in January that I had to check this bar out.  Unlike other dive bars that shun sunlight so that you can forget that it's daytime, this place embraces it.  Its large windows and glass door let in so much light that you might as well be at a street festival in the summer.  The Sox sign in the window, the domestic beer signs, and the corner-hugging way the bar stands were all textbook dive bar.  But this place was more than that.  Much, much more.
  
  If you come in here at night, you'll notice that the bar has flourescent lights on that exude the ambiance of a hallway of a government building built in 1950.  Whatever time of day, you're sure to get stared down and even jeered at.  But not by one or two lonely souls.  By about thirty of them.
  
  My third time there, earlier today, I walked in to a Chilean girl (I found that out later) and some Mexicans yelling "Myspace!" at me.  Was it my messenger bag that tipped them off that I wasn't one of them?  I sat down and ordered a bottle of Miller Lite.  $2.25.  The bartender, Jimmy, asked if I was Polish.  I told him no and laughed and he told me I looked European.  Everyone was drinking this mixture of tap beer (MGD) with raspberry "Cracovia" syrup - Jimmy said "to sweeten".  I figured, when in Rome and got some.  A huge challice of beer for $2!  No wonder it was so popular.  It actually wasn't half bad.  You could also get a 12 oz pint for $1 or a shot for $2.50-4.
  
  Everyone in here was smoking.  Except for maybe the dogs, one of which was too busy shitting all over the place.  The girl that was holding him started yelling until Jimmy provided her a (single) napkin that she cleaned the dog off with.  Quite a few men thought this was funny.  Most didn't notice.
  
  If you want to take in a modern day version of what an immigrant's pub must have been like in 1915, come here.  You've got about 5 different languages being spoken, probably most of what I couldn't understand was peppered with curse words.  Most of the guys here were actually pretty funny.  One time my young-looking friend Greg ordered a beer and a Miller hat-wearing mullet asked if he was old enough to drive.
  
  The faded, yellow 1985 Bears poster.  The Hydrogen Peroxide stored right next to the vodka.  The Lottery Machine (and drunks buying lotto tickets). The fact that this place doubles as a liqour store with no store, just a few racks of booze.  The front and back doors.  The security camera TV shooting the parking lot out back.  The booths.  The 6:30am opening time.  The random closing times.  The rowdy immigrants.  
  
  So just remember, while you're out there munching on your tagine at Lula or drinking your La Fin du Monde at the Map Room, there are still rowdy immigrants trying to whet their whistle same as you.  This is their place.   Cheers to them.

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  Posted on 08.10.07 Timothy M.

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