Rockit Bar & Grill

Worst experience at a bar - EVER. This happened a couple months back when I was at Rockit celebrating a friend's birthday. I had been there once before and had no complaints other then the fact that their food and drinks were overpriced. If you have not been to Rockit Bar and Grill in River North it is essentially a Wrigleyville college bar, that feels they can up-charge because of their River North address.

Something that I did not bargain for was how awful the staff treated one of my friends. Chris Calcaterra was the ring leader and is some kind of manager at Rockit, but obviously has no idea as to how to treat customers. Chris along with three other male employees decided that it was acceptable to treat my friend like trash and bully her to force her to leave. Now lets be honest I'm sure we have all encountered a friend or maybe ourselves being asked to leave a bar early because they/you were over-served. I understand that the individual establishment reserves the right to ask anyone to leave at anytime. This was a completely different story, I have never seen such disrespect and disregard for common decency in my life.

My friend became their target for the night, Chris Calcaterra was out of line.  Even if you are asking someone to leave, you need to remember that they are still a paying customer and you will treat them with respect and dignity. Chris on the other hand was rude and abrasive upon our first encounter with him. If you make someone feel attacked right from the get go,  you did not handle the situation correctly.  As a manager at a bar never engage yourself and your three male co-workers against three females who are willing to stand up for their friend being attacked.
When asked why our friend was being asked to leave we were also brushed off, we were told and I quote " hey no one likes being kicked out", "you are all intoxicated" and "you don't have to leave only your friend does."

That's when it all started to make sense. My friend who was being kicked out was profiled based on how she looked. Don't get me wrong she is gorgeous, but does not fit into society's cookie cutter mold. For this reason I believe that she was profiled. Judging people for how they looked and treating them with disrespect seemed to be the theme of the night at Rockit. Did I forget to mention that an employee at Rockit who was called in to deal with us called me "that tall skinny bitch" straight to another friends face who was also on the defensive against the staffs rude behavior.
By the time we were allowed to get out coats and rushed downstairs Chris Calcaterra and his "muscle" told my friend "you don't belong here."

Here is the kicker: It is not a coincidence that this same friend being asked to leave that night was also denied entrance to The Underground a year earlier for her own schools social. When asked the reason for not being allowed in she was not given an answer. Rockit Ranch Productions owns both The  Underground and Rockit Bar and Grill. This leads me to believe that this is a common practice for this business, to allow its employees to treat certain people with such disregard and disrespect based on how they look. I am absolutely disgusted. I will never again step foot in the establishments owned by Rockit Ranch Productions, and I will tell everyone of my negative experience.

If profiling people based on how they look is a characteristic that you value in the places you go to have fun, by all means please enjoy. I personally will not contribute to anyone that makes it a common practice to hurt other people, bring them down and disrespect them.

This place gets SUPER packed, but it is completely worth the wait. I came here for a private fundraiser event and so we had little appetizers, and all of them were amazing. The burgers and truffle fries were so addicting! The manager was very accommodating for our private event and the staff was friendly as well.

Mike and his staff were fantastic in handling our small group for brunch. I emailed in advance because we wanted to be able to watch a particular game and when we got there, we had prime seats and everyone was very accommodating.  They have an amazing brunch menu and I definitely want to go back and try a few more things. The bloody Mary bar was quite extensive and yummy! The live music was great too! My out of town guests were quite impressed.