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Free food can be hard to find, but low-price liquor? Everywhere you turn.

Monday Sep 18, 2006.     By Erin Brereton

Lifestyle Feed

I had intended to check out Kitsch'n River North's happy hour buffet bar for this week's jaunt. Rumored to include numerous appetizers from the restaurant's home cookin' menu and drink deals in a retro setting, it sounded perfect. I love drinking; I love light snacking while drinking. Everybody wins!

The buffet used to be between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday nights. But alas, I was unable to call and confirm said day and date because I was stuck in the Cleveland airport admiring their new display of security-seized weaponry—which included a cleaver, darts, a Rambo rifle bullet chain and a bullwhip, among other things, grandly displayed on velvet in three glass cases. But that's another story...for another time.

When I arrived, famished, at Kitsch'n's River North location, the bartender told me the buffet was being moved to only Friday nights (although he promised it would be bigger and better). I was out of luck. I did munch on some lovely complimentary mango salsa and chips while ascertaining that, though.

My friends and I decided to move over to Motel Bar, just next door and delightfully decorated to mimic a swank 1960s hotel lobby. Thursday nights there equal $4 Effen Vodka specials. Great! I thought. Alas, we were again cheaply cursed, as our waitress spilled part of a drink on my friend and forgot to tell the kitchen about the food I'd ordered. We checked out of Motel fast.

Lucky for me, it is a large city. And as if I had clicked my red sequined heels together and wished for a discounted drink, I found there was no place like home: I was able to quench my thirst in my very own neighborhood a few nights later.

Hackney's is kind of my neighborhood secret because it's casual (I once went there coated in paint and no one ever blinked) and the food is so good. And it's diverse: You can get salads, burritos, everybody practically wets themselves over those burgers, etc. Growing up, I have fond memories of dining at the Wheeling location, where we always ordered the fried onion brick. (It's probably equivalent to eating a heart attack, yes, but it's a tasty coronary.)

But how I lived near the Printer's Row Hackney's for a year without realizing wine was half price two nights a week—on Monday and Tuesday—I'll never know (bad urban cowgirl). My friend Emily and I ordered up a bottle of Pinot Grigio and some Hackney's sammiches and set about catching up on the weekend's events. And then? Well, wouldn't you know it but that bottle of wine was all gone...and we were still parched.

Therein lies the quandary of half-price wine night: If you want just another glass or two, it's actually more economical to purchase another bottle, since the glasses are in the $5-$7 range and the half-off bottles are around $8 or $9. But somehow ordering a bottle just to have a glass seems excessive, even if it is a better deal (wallet, 1; liver, 0.).

Mid-debate, our waiter stopped by to let us know the city had passed an ordinance that allows patrons to bring home unused portions of wine, I suppose to discourage downing the rest of a bottle so as not to let it go to waste, getting wasted and then wandering around wreaking havoc. Not that I was planning to do that, per se, but hey, works for me!

We ordered up another bottle, had a glass, corked it and left. It felt strange walking down the street with an open bottle of wine—but when the bill came out to be less than $40 for all food and drinks, who could complain? Not me. And out of respect for the City Council, I did not drink from the bottle or slur my words on the walk home. That's one from me...to you.

But I'm still not over Kitsch'n—I'm going to go one of these days. After all, it's not every day you find blast-from-the-past appetizers kindly laid out for you, free of charge, after work. It's on Friday, to be precise. Otherwise this week's column would be totally different.

Want to check out Hackney's food and drink deals? It's at 733 S. Dearborn St., (312) 461-1116. Kitsch'n River North is at 600 W. Chicago, (312) 644-1500 and Motel Bar is at 600 W. Chicago Ave., (312) 822-2900.