Imbibing: The Desperation of Mad River

Waters must be rather choppy at Mad River Bar & Grille, if their latest promotion is any indication. Today, the old warhorse is offering six (6) special deals to win the hearts and minds of Wrigleyvillers.


From 11am to 5pm, you can get a free appetizer with purchase of sandwich or entree, which is a normal enough offer, but also, expect a double punch on your lunch card. We had to sit and figure out what this meant for a sec, until we read what was in the parentheses next to it (buy four lunches and get the fifth one free). So basically, they’ll stamp you twice for buying one lunch. Your loyalty is worth twice as much today!

Dinner (5pm-2am, although the kitchen closes earlier than that) brings a whole new round of incentives: appetizers are half-priced, and so are bombs. BOMBS?!?! Maybe we got the newsletter for Mad River Baghdad by mistake. No, instead, you can drop shots of booze into beer on the cheap; what fun. Furthermore, $10 at the door will buy you some amount of Coors Light draft, mixed well drinks and pizza - probably the best deal of the lot. But wait! Behind door number two, the first fifty people who show up this evening win a prize. What, a seat at the bar? A crappy, sugary shot the color of one those poisonous frogs? The possibilities are endless!

It’s not like Mad River is in its death throes, but all these deals are ominous - sure, they’ll make back the money on drink purchases, but why do they need to promise the world to get you in the door? We think this scattershot approach reflects poorly on the bar’s popularity, and that they would be better off with a single, compelling event (like Dating on Demand, which they did in April).

Mad River [MenuPages]
Mad River [Official Site]

[Photo: their website]

Imbibing: The Desperation of Mad River