Yak-Zies Bar & Grill

This place is a solid, low-​key spot that always has plenty of space and allows you some privacy if you’d like to meet up with friends low-​key and actually talk. Open really late, plenty of televisions, a large area for parties/​get-​togethers, so I end up here for a lot of football games when I’m not in the mood for a real rowdy venue. They also have the best/​biggest buffalo wings… I get them every single time.
Not a great place if you want to party and meet new people, though… Duffie’s down the street is better if you’re looking for that kind of environment.

Local joint in Lincoln Park/​Lakeview. Super cheap happy hour deals, and daily specials list familiar brews and mixes making it easy. Underground bar with TVs at every booth, so you can watch the cubbies no matter where you’re sitting. Very solid.

I’m not from Chicago so I was very impressed with the «bar in a basement». The setting is really fun with a gorgeous wood bar & paneling. The bartender was awesome and they had great drinks. The wings were really original (tasted a lot like the originals from Buffalo). I’d go back just to hang with the bartender and catch a game and have some free popcorn.

So this place has the best wings I have had in 5 cities outside of buffalo. Born and raised in buffalo, the extra hot (second. From the top) wings are amazing, a fun bar cheap beer great place

I got dragged here late at night about 2:30am by some friends. The bar was decently packed and this place kind of reminds me of someone’s basement, with a very large bar in the middle. The crowd was slightly older, that’s coming from a 23 year old, but it was still fun.

I am continually pleased with this place. The food has never disappointed me and service is great. Lots of TV’s to watch games with a good variety. Staff is professional and fun to be around. Late night crowd since they have a great deal to be open until 4am. Might even be later in Saturday. I have a lot of favorites. Everything has been great. Good location in Chicago.

A great place to go and eat wings (I haven’t eaten anything else from their menu, which is standard pub fare) and watch a game. In addition they have a good selection of beer.
What makes it such a great place to sit and work on a slow buzz, however, are the bartenders. They are all really great guys and I have been going to this bar for over ten years and have not once failed to have a memorable time. Be sure to tip generously, because they deserve it.
If you’re planning an evening out with friends or want a nice neighborhood bar experience you should give this place a try.

My fiancé and i decided to be spontaneous and go somewhere we havent tried yet in lincoln park area. Were not one to judge places considering some of our favorite spots are dives. We took a seat at a booth and ordered 2 draft beers. Mine unfortunately had a baby cockroach floating in it. Even though i was now completely grossed out, i politely asked for a new beer without a friend in it. The bartender was nice but seemed unconcerned about the swimmer in my drink and brought me a new beer. We stayed for our order of wings and left our beers unfinished. I also did not expect to see the $ 5 charge for my beer on our check and reluctantly paid for it. Unfortunate experience in a great up and coming area.

Great place meet a few new friend was here over 12 years ago with the burwood tap crew of Jon synder and John Peterson missed the team will connect again job at had a tang z q burger times have changed here

Great atmosphere here always. It’s a basement bar with a lot of wood grain character. Good service here too. A great place to go out for drinks in lakeview.

The wings are amazing, specially the Hot sauce! The Tang Z burger is simply awesome too! The bartender, Tony, is friendly, attentive and on top of everything. This is definitely a good bar with awesome food and great service!

Had a few beers on a Sunday afternoon and ordered wings to-​go. No beer specials at all. The wings are absolutely nothing special. Really slimey/​slippery style, so the sauce probably isn’t grilled on but instead just poured over the top. Really sub-​par wings with nothing separating it from any other joint. I’m sure any other bar has better. Also really didn’t enjoy that although we asked for an extra ranch on each of the two orders we were instead given like 5 cups of ranch and charged 75 cents for each. For real?
No reason to ever go back. Oh, and the bartender put his bare hand in the popcorn machine to grab a handful to eat, and did so multiple times. Yay.

I have been here twice in the afternoon and since I just moved here the afternoon bartender has been one of the friendliest people I have met in Chicago. Food is decent, beer is ok but the friendliness of the afternoon guy makes this place.

My experience here was brief and definitely chicken based, but these wings are worth a review. I was here with a friend on a Friday around happy hour time, strictly to get a quick bite to eat. I heard about their wings on Chicago’s Best, so decided to try ‘em out!
Yak-Zie’s wing sauce flavors include Mild, Medium, Hot, Oh My Gosh! & Tang-​Z-​Q with your choice of Tang, Blu-​cheese, Ranch, or Tang-​Z-​Q dipping sauce and a side of celery. Now, I LOVE spicy foods, so I started off with the hot wings that were pretty good. As soon as I took a bite I tasted juicy, saucy and absolutely delicious chicken. No time was wasted biting through a big breaded crust — these wings get straight to the point with flavor bursting chicken. Ok now I was intrigued.
After finishing off some hot wings, I tried the Tang-​Z-​Q flavor and have to admit, those were my favorite. The sauce is a flavor unlike one I’ve ever tried! It tastes like a mix of barbeque, hot sauce, tangy sauce and some sort of Asian flavor. All I have to say is well done Yak-Zie’s, well done.
The perfect compliment to my basket of wings was the $ 3 draft special I enjoyed. Can’t complain.

If you’re looking for a depressing, unfriendly, totally anonymous place with a strange crowd, this is your spot! It’s in a nice neighborhood, but unlike its neighbor, Galway Bay (a bar I highly recommend), this place sucks on all levels. I will give it one star for being clean and having a decent bathrooms — complete with an «attendant». After all, it’s so often that I feel like tipping a guy so I can try some cheap cologne at 3am!

I got a house salad. It tasted just like a house. HORRIBLE FOOD. HORRIBLE ATMOSPHERE. HORRIBLE PRICES. Did I mention this place was horrible? I have nightmares about my visit there. Seriously, the worst experience at a restaurant I’ve EVER had.

There are a lot of bars in Chicago, and in this part of Lakeview especially.
This Yakzies location is below ground, so you have to descend to enter, which depending on your view of the world, can be a little off-​putting.
I most have been here to drink and the beer selection is fairly basic. Although they always have good popcorn and can keep you going all night, if that’s your jam.
I did have a fairly unique and tasty item here. I’m a big fan of buffalo chicken and Yakzies served me up some buffalo chicken quesadillas. It was not overwhelmingly buffalo chicken or quesadilla, but a nice blend of the two classic bar foods. Nice work, Yakzies.
To conclude, if you live near here and want a place to drink in a basement with popcorn, Yakzies is your jam. Get in there!

Yak-​Zies is my spot! I don’t stick around for the late night crowd, but it’s a great place to go with a good group of friends. It’s a well kept location and they always have delicious free popcorn. The food is not bad either. Since they reopened a few years ago they have done a great job of maintaining the bar and offering great service. If I’m out at a bar there’s a very good chance that I am here.

Walking in here was like entering a really well done suburban basement shiny wood and all. I guess it’s been around for a really long time but they must have re-​modeled it since then. It was very clean and shiny.
Plenty of tv’s to watch the sports of your choice and large cozy looking booths to chill out, grub and drink.
When reading through the menu I had to laugh at a couple of things. «Best Wings in the World». That’s a very bold statement. Very bold. Even if I wasn’t in the mood for wings, I had to order them because I knew for a fact it couldn’t be true.
We ordered the medium wings. You can also order mild, hot or tangy I believe. No breading on the wings (no problem with that) but I was looking for a piping hot plate of steamy hot goodness. What arrived was closer to bland. The sauce was barely even on there and the wings were dry. The sauce tasted good but they taste like wings that were frozen then thrown into the fryer. Fail.
I also noticed that refills on soda were not free. I don’t typically order soda when I’m at a bar but I just thought of that as particularly cheap. Didn’t realize places even did that anymore. It kind of made me giggle.
The bartender was nice enough and only seemed to strike up conversation towards the end. Most of the time he seemed pretty cold.
I don’t really see a need to come back to this place. It’s just your typical sports bar, except it’s located in a basement.

Yak-​zies closed down for a while (a year?) and re-​opened to much fanfare. By ‘fanfare’, I mean incessant ‘woo-​hooing’ from the ‘woo hoo girls.’ Outside of the bar. At 2 am. Nearly every night.
Curious to see what was going on in here to illicit such raucous celebration, I stumbled in for some grub. The beer was passable, the bartender was nice, the pizza wasn’t that great and the wings got the job done. There was no flavor explosion in my mouth. Not once, during the many sports games that played while I ate by myself, did I ever feel the need to woo hoo. While, overall, a perfectly adequate experience, I remain unaware of why the woo-​hoos? Why the noise? Why the screaming?
I suppose I’ll never know. But what I do know is that the screaming, at 2 am, nearly EVERY morning, HAS TO STOP. Seriously, control your patrons. Didn’t you JUST re-​open after being shut down for so long? Did your time out teach you nothing? Unless the bar is giving away free money in the middle of the night, the woo hoos need to stop. At a minimum, Yak-​Zies needs to respect its neighbors. The food’s not THAT good.