Iron Horse Saloon

There's a joint called the Iron Horse Social Club out in Savanna that is an old time biker bar which was what I kind of expected here. Not so fast. Or perhaps just not quite so fast since the Harley has been replaced by the thoroughbred. This is an OTB.
   Alerted to this place by a friend on a charity bike run I was surprised to find it in a newer strip mall and more surprised when I walked in and chose door #2 on my right. There was a no frills, really no frills room with a couple taps, no visible liquor stock, bare walls, a couple tables and chairs, and a few monitors on the wall with what I would assume were east coats tracks in motion. This is definitely a room for the old down-and-outer who'd be at the track if he hadn't lost his car to a bookie or multiple DUIs.
   Door #1 on the other hand is a different animal. I didn't notice any hog influenced decor or for that matter horseracing stuff. There was however a nice collection of Blackhawk jerseys, a smaller collection of Bear jerseys, plenty of major sports related photos, and I believe 52 TVs.
    Horshoe shaped bar with a lady named Sheri (pardon my spelling) that was shaped nothing like a horseshoe manning it. Standard bar stock with a few taps and macro-centric bottles is not what people are here for. I didn't check the menu since lunch was on the horizon elsewhere but there were at least a dozen people in and all were eating.
   They can probably get at least well over 100 people in here and seat quite a few of them at the bar or the many low and high tables. It's roomy and clean with monitors unobstructedly visible from anywhere. The staff (there was a nice young waitress whose name I didn't get beside Sheri) was friendly. The customers were friendly blue collar guys on lunch. The only thing that was a shame was the fact that with all the windows acrossthe front of the main room they were all covered with ad copy, pics, or just plain covered with paneling. Don't want reality to intrude on that TV experience with disgusting old sunlight. I'd go back and give the menu a taste.
  This apparently used to be Fat Sam's. Attention Yelp!

This is an OTB bar in the middle of sprawl lockport. I was there for a Bulls playoff game and they had a nice huge screen TV. They also had 100 other tv screens and 90 of them were turned to horse race tracks all over country. Nobody was watching any of them and it seems a waste of energy. A nice huge bar that they unfortunbely waste alot of room to the dying unspectatular sport of racing.