Classic pub style decor greets you in this Lakeview pub. The Duke offers a true pub atmosphere with no TVs or loud music to detract from its scenes of Scotland. The place is bit sketchy on the outside but is quite cozy inside with fireplaces burning warmly in the winter.
This room is complete with track lighting, a faux fireplace, Scottish agriculture implements and other Scottish memorabilia mounted on the walls.
Just lots of dark wood, good food, ale, and lots of Scotch. Every Wednesday and Friday the Duke fills to the rafters for the $9.50 all-you-can-eat fish and chips special.
Chicago, Illinois; 773-477-1741
The country’s most exciting bar right at this moment is the The Violet Hour which just opened in Chicago’s Wicker Park.
The building is still unmarked on the outside. The crowd waiting to get in makes the location pretty obvious.
The curtains separate each of the bar’s three rooms, which house matching periwinkle furniture. The extravagantly lounge, in a serene blue and gray palette, crystal chandeliers that designer Thomas Schlesser created especially to provide a private experience.
Bartenders make each with painstaking precision, using housemade simple syrups, bitters and twice-filtered ice cubes. The classic cocktails (Gimlet, Negroni, Paloma) are superb. There’s also a small, carefully chosen selection of champagnes, wines and beers.
Boulder is the first city in the United States which imposes an additional tax on residents who use electricity made from coal. About a third of the total waste steam here is recycled.
The city has one of the largest solar hydronic systems in the country and it is ringed by 43,000 acres of protected open space, which is nearly three times the landmass of Manhattan. Boulder is also laced with greenways and designated bike lanes.
In Boulder you can get anywhere on bike, almost as fast as a car can. As well as in this beautiful city, the community program gives bikes to homeless people in exchange for work and there’re a bounty of new routes and trails in recent years.
The Boulder Creek Path is the main artery of Boulder bikeland. But Boulder is not for everybody. Some people hate the place. The town is rigorously conformist in its alternative way- if you wear river sandals and sport rucksack.
All the restaurants there use organic ingredients that are free of synthetic chemicals and pesticides.
