By END
October 15, 2009
It was late night and a few girls from work wanted to go out. Someone suggested XS because it was industry night and they always have cheap drinks. She had me at cheap. We all drove separately since we all drive separately to and from work. I had one of my girlfriends meet me at work before we closed so she could ride with me and give me some direction on how to get there.
First of all, I realized I've passed this place like 10 times and never noticed it before, it's a bit hidden and you'll kind of only see it if you're looking for it. We parked in the lot, FREE lot, across the street. It was chilly out, so my girlfriend and I decided to go in and wait for the rest of the crew at the bar. Crossing the street I realized that there wasn't a front entrance, you had to walk thru the alley and enter in the back door. Now I watch a lot of horror flicks, and all the "clubs" where you enter thru the back are the ones where it's rave-ish like and you get eaten by vampires. The doorman was a little on the pale side, and I'm no Sookie Stackhouse but I thought we'd be okay. The place was super dark and all the people inside where wearing all black clothes with chains hanging from their pants. Rave-ish like music was blasting on the speakers and a few people were dancing in a mosh pit. Great, we WERE going to eaten by vampires tonight. Kidding! Sunday night also draws a huge goth-like crowd and they take over the whole first floor. And it was fairly crowded for a Sunday, so XS must be doing something right. We decided to move up to the second floor to see if the crowd there was more our scene. Upstairs was way more like my thing, relaxed and laid back. There is a huge U-shape bar in the middle of the floor and there were plenty of people sitting around it. There was also a pool table and a dart board, but I didn't see anyone ready to play. We grabbed two drinks at the bar and sat on the cushions up against the glass wall. You can overlook the first floor and witness all the shennenigans that goes on down there. I ordered a Coors Light, which was $2, and a Captain and Coke for $1.50. Holy Cheese Curds, my work friends were right about the really cheap drinks. My friend sat on the cushion and I stood over her and we starting talking about the place. At the same time I see some risque images out of the corner of my eye. The kind where I can't even say what I saw. I quickly interrupted our conversation and tell her to turn around and look downstairs. On a big movie screen on the downstairs dance floor different video snippets were playing. All I could do was laugh; this place was not what I was expecting. At all.
My work friends soon arrived and told me that XS is very LGBT friendly (For people not in the know, it's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) and they sometimes draw in a diverse crowd. I looked around and I didn't see that many LGBT patrons, but I suspect I couldn't get past the first floor visions to see anything else. In Chicago, a lot of the kick ass clubs were the gay ones. They tend to play better music, are always open late, and have great crowds. I realize that this was a Sunday night, so I know not to expect too much. This place deserves coming again, the drinks are way cheap and the atmosphere upstairs was very chill, I'll just have to check it out on a different night.
