Best Intentions

03/13/2026

This Saturday and Sunday only, we’ll have 60 plates available each day starting at 11am until they’re gone.

Coors-braised brisket topped with horseradish sauce, served with seared cabbage, duck fat carrots and parsnips in fermented apple butter, and roasted potatoes with malt-mustard vinaigrette.

Twenty four dollars.

01/28/2026

We will be closed on Friday, January 30th in solidarity with the great majority of our nation who does not believe in fascism, authoritarianism, and hatred. We stand with Minneapolis. We stand with immigrants. We stand with the Constitution. Abolish ICE. Call your representatives and demand action.

01/01/2026

As some of you may remember, the first week of January is when we pause for a moment to rest and recharge.

We’ll be closed from January 1st-8th, and we’ll be back to welcome you with open arms on Friday the 9th.

Thank you, as always, for supporting us and sharing yourselves with us. 2025 was, within these four walls, a beautiful and heartwarming year. Outside’s a whole ‘nother thing, but let’s not talk about ugly things on New Year’s Day.

Happy 2026, everyone. Be kind to everyone and keep each other safe.

12/25/2025

Our New Year's Eve Fancy Dinner is back!

For only $200, you get an over-the-top 2lb Surf & Turf, with a pound of house-rubbed and seared prime rib, a pound of king crab (served with warm drawn butter, of course), warm Parker House rolls, a stunning Waldorf salad, scalloped potatoes, and roasted delicata squash, plus cheesecake for dessert, and we serve it all by candlelight.

There are four 90 minute seatings, and we must insist on strictly enforcing the time limit, otherwise we can't seat everyone who'd like to join us. After all, we only have 20 proper bar seats. You're welcome to hang out after your dinner reservation is up, but please know ahead of time that you'll be standing!

The last seating is at 10:30pm, and that one goes for $250 as it guarantees that you can keep that seat all the way up until bar close, if you'd like to.

We'll have a special menu of high quality, affordable bubbles on hand for you to order, as well as our usual list of spirits, cocktails and beers.

This is the only food we'll be serving for the evening, and while we'll try to accommodate allergies and dietary restrictions where we can, we are unfortunately unable to offer substitutions for this dinner.

If you're not interested in joining us for dinner proper, please know that we remain open for regular drink service all night starting at 5pm, but you'll be partying standing up for the duration.

Tickets available at the link below!

https://buytickets.at/bestintentions/1997224

12/23/2025

Regular hours for Christmas Eve, as always! When you’re tired of the other things you planned on doing, we’ll be here for you.

12/17/2025

We interrupt (somewhat) your regularly scheduled programming for the following:

You might not know it but we love the Chicago Bears, in theory and, currently, in practice. Right now, they’re a pretty good football team and they have a very big game this week.

It’s a big enough game that it’s being played and broadcast starting at 7:20pm this Saturday night, so we’re going to do what we’ve been doing for the past ten years: we’re going to put on the sound, and we’re going to root for our team.

We take great pride in the ambience at our bar, so if you’ve never seen a Bears game here, please know: you’ll never hear a second of commercial audio, and you’ll never miss a second of game sound.

We’re here to throw you a party, and we’re here to beat the Packers. Let’s get silly, and let’s go on to win the damned division.

Bear down and come get a cocktail.

12/13/2025

It’s that time of year again. Bring us your gifts, and we’ll make them beautiful. Be nice to Santa.

11/21/2025

One of our favorite traditions is being open the night of Thanksgiving, and welcoming all of you in for some warmth and comfort. We’re going to miss it dearly this year, the first time in ten years that we’ll be closed for the night. Rest assured, we plan on being back in force next year.

However, since being open has always been our way of sharing Thanksgiving with all of you—our extended family—we’re carrying that torch in a slightly different way this year.

On Monday, 11.24.25, we’ll have 50 approximately 12lb turkeys available for pickup, free to good homes. It’s a particularly trying time for all of us, and we wanted to make sure that if we could help ease the burden and brighten Thanksgiving for anyone in a new way, that we would.

So. No questions asked, and please pass this along to anyone at all:

This Monday the 24th, from 2-8pm, come to the side door on Spaulding, say hi, and leave with a fresh, uncooked turkey that will feed eight, along with a quart of house-made stuffing for you to use in your preparation if you so choose.

We’re thankful for all of you, and for anyone with kindness in their heart.

First come, first turkey-ed. Can’t wait to say hi.

10/30/2025

That’s right. This Friday, 10/31/25, we’re dressing up as Bob’s Burgers. We’ll have most of your favorite characters represented, we’ll have a Burger of the Day, Jimmy Pesto will be kicking out Spaghetti with a huge Meatball, we’ll have an Erotic Friend Fiction Journaling Corner, the Fanciest of Cocktails (all on theme, obviously), and Chris is dying the gray out of his moustache.

5pm-close. Teddy will be there.

07/03/2025

05/08/2025

The reason why Best Intentions is Best Intentions is because of the people who work here. Working here, while incredibly fulfilling and satisfying, is also both mentally and physically taxing on a nearly unparalleled level.

In the front of house, we clean for hours after everyone goes home, detailing and sanitizing every surface and bottle, and often not laying our heads on pillows until 5am on 2am close.

This is not meant as a complaint. We are honored daily for the opportunity to serve all of you, and we plan on continuing to do so for a long time to come.

This is, however, to let you know that we will now be closing on Saturdays at 2am instead of 3am, in the interest of improving everyone’s quality of life and keeping smiles on all of our faces.

We’ll miss the last 45 minutes with our industry friends and other vampires, but know that we’ll be all the better for it, and you might even get that next perfectly miniscus-ed daiquiri a few seconds faster than you already do.

04/30/2025

A huge thank you to for including us again this year on an astounding list of very special places created and held together by truly amazing people.

We’re so insanely proud our city for showing out with such force last night, for standing together and supporting each other and celebrating together.

with the moment of the evening: standing on stage receiving the previously un-announced Campari One to Watch Award, repeatedly mouthing “What is happening?” through beautiful, goofy smiles while being photographed a thousand times.

showing us all how it’s done, being justly named the number one bar in the Midwest and number TEN(!!!) in North America, all while gracefully kicking out the finest cocktails in the room.

giving them a run for their money just down the way, and working until the final bell like Chicago always does.

opening five minutes ago and already coming for the crown.

and all of them, along with our other badass award-winning friends from and , , and so many others surrounding us, literally and metaphorically holding our hands while we watched the numbers tick by and became convinced we’d been invited by accident.

Ten years in, with the help of so many incredible family members and friends, carried by everyone who’s ever clocked in at 3281 W. Armitage and all of our beautiful regulars, that was a night we will not forget.