240 Lounge & Cafe

Fun drink specials and a very cool dive bar for relaxing evenings! Highly recommended for a quick and easy drink

Top of the bottom shelf.
Nice little dive bar.
Pool table. Comedy on thursdays.
I can somersault here from my apartment.
Sometimes if I have to take a dumper and the roomies already stretching his colon. I’ll stop in here for a beer and a blintz. Nah mean norma jean?

Bartender is hot, pool table is a Diamond and nice. They do comedy here sometimes also. Good little find. Will return.

Nicest small bar in Albany Park. Great atmosphere, diamond pool table and TouchTunes jukebox. Thumbs up!!! A+ service.

One of my favorite places in Albany park, genial stuff, good atmosphere, nice people and jukebox! What else you need:) The owner is always kind and greets me every time.

The remodel of this place looks amazing. Such a huge difference. Its a great local bar with a friendly staff. They have a comedy showcase every 2^nd and 4^th Thursday. Its a really fun show. The hosts are great and so handsome!

Thank you, Baby Jeebuz! The place has been remodeled and it is still a dive bar, but, in a good way! I am no longer in fear of my life to use the restroom!

This bar waters down their liquor. Plain and simple. I’m an Asian girl and I took 4 Patron shots. I didn’t even turn typical-​Asian-​drinking red. Very disappointed. Thursday is open mic night for stand up comedians. Be careful… You could end up at the receiving end of bad jokes.
However, the Asian bartender was delightful. I hope she wasn’t the one watering down my shots. You’ve been warned.

This is a weird and sometimes creepy bar. It attracts all kinds of yahoos. It’s only other use is that it’s open a few feet away from the Admiral. The Admiral is a dry club. That means no booze and all of their other drinks are $ 8 dollars each. Yep, $ 8 dollars for a fucking bottle of water. The next time you happen to visit the Admiral and say your friends have stepped out for a smoke, you can step in here for a couple drinks. Admiral’s security is cool about customers doing this and promote you to visit other local businesses. Often times Admiral viewers will come and go between the two spots.
I wasn’t going to share this recent incidence but I will. I think it goes to show, well, weird. So I was at the Admiral recently with a couple guys. I was still inside while a couple guys stepped out for a drink. Approaching the bar a patron hopped up out of his seat and offered to buy them a drink. Cool, they thought. One got «Jamo on the rocks» and the other a beer. One of my friends is a very BIG guy. Due to his short height, most would dub him as obese. I guess the guy that bought them a beer had some «thing» for fat guys. Since this patron bought, they hung out and had a conversation with him. The whole while the patron had his eyes on my buddy’s belly. He kept telling him how he like to beat up his belly. My bro has a huge belly, it’s that which makes him such a jolly guy. So, dude was looking at his belly and talking to it like he wanted to fight with it. Realizing the predicament a free drink posed, they gulped their drinks and we took a bit of extra time before returning for another round.

Blacked out windows greet you from outside, I could tell why once I stepped inside.
Having been summoned to this bar for an old friend’s birthday, I got to this bar before my friends had finished Korean BBQ down the street at Chicago Kalbi. I was amused to see autographed adult film star posters on the wall, but considering where I was at, it was to be expected. What was unexpected was entering an empty bar minus one guy on the opposite end of the bar and the bartender.
If I represent 50% of the potential revenue and tips that could come in, you would figure that I would require immediate attention on entering a bar. Nope, I had to look around to see a texting bartender while I waited for no response. Eventually she woke up from her much more interesting virtual world and served me a drink and sank back into the other side of the bar to continue her virtual adventures.
Slowly in came my friends one by one and eventually we had 20 people in the bar and everyone in here was complaining about how damn slow it was to get a drink. We are the only people in the bar, how does it make any sense that we have to wait super long to get a damn drink! And it’s not like we are ordering the cheapest beer in the house, it’s our friend’s birthday so shots go flying left and right and replenisher rounds but nope the service kept interrupting our flow of chi to a higher plane called drunkeness.
We were displeased and felt animosity for the poor service on a friend’s birthday. We left.
Nope, not you.

If I could give this place zero stars would. The only draw to this place is that its next to the Admiral (which also deserves zero stars) which doesn’t serve alcohol. I still don’t think that’s a good enough reason to charge $ 9 for a Makers rocks. The most I’ve paid for a Makers rocks was $ 8 in New York. This place is a whole in the wall. The bartender tried justifying the price to me. «Oh its 2 and half shots and worth the money.» Bullshit. Then I inquired about a sign in the window that said Karaōke Wednesdays and $ 6 pitchers. The bartender replied that their tap was broken and they no longer had karaōke but they were trying to bring it back. False advertising. My advise to you… walk the extra block around the corner to Gamblers. Good prices and really nice people at Gamblers.

«Sitting in the waiting room…»
There are plenty of written rules when it comes to a strip club. But, to the best of my knowledge, there are only two unwritten rules:
The first rule is that you never wear jeans to a strip club. Always slacks or (if you’re a lady or a gentlemen who doesn’t care) a skirt or dress. This has nothing to do with being classy. Once you’ve been to one, you know the reason why so I won’t discuss it here.
The second rule, imparted to me by a wise bro is «no dude wants to roll into a strip club alone.» This just looks kind of creepy.
«Sitting in the waiting room…»
Well the 240 Lounge has solved this problem for the Admiral Theater. Located a few doors down, the 240 literally serves as that particular strip club’s waiting room. It’s a low key bar where patrons of the other establishment can meet up, pre-​lube, and, well, if you’ve been to the Admiral, sometimes decide not to leave.
I mean, this bar plays the same kind of songs as you’d hear at the strip club and there are photos of the Admiral’s strippers on the wall. So it’s almost the same.
Since the Admiral is a dry strip club, this is also the place to get sauced using the in/​out privileges at the Theater. Though drinks, for how divey this bar is, are a bit pricey — especially considering this is Albany Park. There are some good specials, though, including $ 3 redheaded sluts! I’m not much of a shot drinker, but I do love a good redheaded slut. They also serve a blue balls shot for the same price, but I didn’t want to try that. It didn’t seem enjoyable.
«Sitting in the waiting room…»
Maybe needless to say, the one and only time I’ve been here, the group of guys next to me as I was waiting for my two peeps (maybe I shouldn’t use that word for a bar next to a strip club) were downing jagerbombs (yeah, it’s that sort of clientele). But the bartenders are chill and friendly no matter what drink you get.
«Because they can’t get up!»
They also have karaōke, just in case you’re looking for an «excuse» to be here that doesn’t involve the building next door (or does and you’re just looking for a reason to lie about your whereabouts). Maybe that’s the unwritten third rule of a strip club… plausible deniability.

So say you’re out celebrating your friend’s bachelor’s party. You’re all drinking and having a grand old time as guys are apt to do at a bachelor’s party. Just when the group reaches that happy, everything-​is-​absolutely-​hilarious! buzz, someone decides to throw out the ingenious idea of going to the Admiral for some good, clean fun with a bunch of naked women. Given the collective inebriation of the group, everyone thinks this is the greatest idea since sliced bread and proceeds to pile into cabs, all the while picturing the ample T&A they will soon be enjoying.
During the cab ride out to the Admiral, you realize that the place is located far far away from downtown Chicago. So far that, uh oh, you’re starting to lose your happy giddy buzz. You try to crack a joke about pirates to get the group going again but everyone else is starting come down too, as evident by the blank stares out the windows of the cab.
By the time the cab drops you off at the Admiral, you realize that your buzz is practically gone for some strange, inexplicable, annoying-​as-​all-​get-​out reason. You start to panic at the thought of going into a strip club while … *gasp* … sober. You look around Lawrence Ave and realize there is zero nightlife on the block save for the Admiral. You fear for the worse and resign to defeat until one of your friends decides to ask the surprisingly friendly doormen if there was any place nearby where you can get a drink.
«Sure. Three doors down that way. There’s a bar. Can’t miss it.»
You look up in the sky and are suddenly thankful for this blessing of a bar out in the middle of nowhere.
It’s called the 240 Lounge and it took care of our pre-​Admiral needs for the evening. Total dive bar with lots of cheap booze (Hoegaarden for $ 4!). The bartender was extremely friendly and gave the bachelor a free shot on the house. We only stayed in there for maybe 15 minutes but we were not only able to get our buzz back, but had such a good time that we almost decided to stay at the bar instead of going to the Admiral. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the Admiral again (overrated rip off — I’ll save that for another review) but I am happy to have discovered the 240 Lounge.