Pizza Party!

[October 24th, 2007] On a street lined with unintentionally kitschy hole-in-the-wall bars, Portsmouth Pizza&Pub (5264 N Lombard St., 289-4644; formerly the Portsmouth Club) feels like a barren warehouse. But don’t be intimidated: Just pick the seating arrangement of your choice—cushy corner booths, high booths with stools, low tables, island bars or the plain ol’ bar—and order some Buffalo chicken pizza (they should win a Nobel Prize for putting celery on that thing; it’s incredible). Sure, the dance music wears a bit thin (I hadn’t heard Crystal Waters’ “100% Pure Love” in a while) and the pizza crust is a little lackluster for a place with “pizza” in its name (a side of ranch is the quickest fix for that), but that doesn’t steal the newly renovated joint’s thunder. Whether you want to relive the post-game pizza parties of your youth in a balloon-free setting or just nurse an IPA in a frosty mug by your lonesome—a handful of the usual suspects are on tap—the Portsmouth has got you covered. Attentive, surprisingly hip servers, the most legitimate stage-dance floor combo on Lombard and one of the greatest pinball games of all time, Medieval Madness , each give the place bonus points. And did I mention that they put celery on the Buffalo chicken pizza? Genius!