Durty Nellie's

This place is interesting in that it really serves a variety of purposes.

1. A restaurant. I have never eaten here, so I cannot honestly rate this place as a restaurant.

2. A bar. I have imbibed at this place several times. Whenever I am here, I am always here for live music which in my opinion is there biggest strength. The bartenders are always polite, friendly, and quick to serve you your drinks. The atmosphere of the place changes depending on where you are. The main room/restaurant area is cavernous and open. People usually crowd the bar area, and it is very bright (not my style). The upstairs is usually extremely crowded if you can even get up there. The bar is smaller, and the area is pretty generic and plain but you can see the stage. As a bar I would give this place 3 stars. My favorite place is on the floor in front of the stage. The back of the room is a huge bar, and they have a decent light and sound set up. Which is the last purpose...

3. A venue. I have seen several bands here. The band that plays every Thursday (Rod Tuffcurls & The Bench Press) are a lot of fun, and they play anything and everything, from Call Me Maybe to the Wrigley Doublemint theme to Magic Dance from the Labyrinth to the NIN classic Closer. I went here and saw 16 Candles (80s cover band) recently. There show is always fun, but it is pretty much the same every time I have seen them. The lights are always great, and the sound is always clean and crisp and LOUD. I would rate this place as a 4 to 4.5 as a venue.

The only drawback I would say is the crowd can be really hit or miss or miss. I have been here and been surrounded by a bunch of tank top wearing bros and/or pop collared dbags, and I have also been here and been surrounded by a much older crowd. The place can get messy, and I have had beer spilled on me more times than I would like, but I am not entirely convinced that my friends aren't responsible for that. Overall, I give this place a 3.75 and round it up to a 4.

Haven't been there in 5 years due to a bad experience, but it was a warm spring evening and we wanted to eat out side. After a 20 minute wait for an outside table(even though there were no less than 3 open any time during our wait. When seated, we waited 20 minutes for our drinks and to order food, and the waitress noticed we had no silverware and said she would be right back with it. 20+ minutes later, a Hispanic man delivered our food, we told him we still needed silverware and more drinks. He nodded and walked off, not to return. My 9 year old ordered a hot dog and it was so charred black, it looked like a marshmellow that fell in the fire.
Our food sat cooling on the table for over 10 minutes with no staff anywhere near until a Manager came to a nearby table to field some other complaints. He was about to walk away and I had to speak up, then shout "SIR" to get him to turn around and see about our problems. He got our silverware, but by then our food sat in the cool evening air long enough to loose all warmth. He got another hotdog for my Son, but did nothing for our food. He also offered nothing for the bill either.
They must have been daring us to walk out because it took 20 minutes from when we were all done to get the bill and another 10 to get my credit card back.

I won't be back. EVER.

This is a pretty fun suburban bar. It's a lot of fun to come here when a band is playing on a Friday night. There is plenty of standing room, good drink selection, and good atmosphere. It's a good hang out spot.