BAR BARGAINS
CarPool
Weeknights from 4 to 7, you can get Miller Lite and rail drinks mixed with soda for $2.75. Yuengling, Peroni, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale costs $3.50. Nosh on half-price appetizers and half-price burgers on Tuesday and 35-cent wings on Wednesday.
Ceviche
Draft beer is $3, house wines and sangria are $4, and margaritas and caipiroska are $5. Appetizers range from $4 to $6. For $15, guests can order a glass of wine or a pint of beer, accompanied by a half-portion entrée and dessert. Weeknights from 4 to 6.
Comet Ping Pong
This Ping-Pong-and-pizza parlor is a popular spot for dates and easy on the wallet, too. Wood-fired pies topped with gourmet ingredient—think fresh clams, smoky Gouda, and roasted squash—cost $11 to $15. Cans of Pabst are $2.50. Ping-Pong is free.
Lounge 201
All-night specials include half-price martinis on Tuesday, wine on Wednesday, and draft beer on Thursday. Also on Thursday, $7 Hammer and Sickle cocktails, and on Friday, a specialty cocktail list, all for $7.50.
The Red Derby
Every hour is happy hour at this cash-only dive. All beers—$2 to $6—are served in cans. A beer-and-shot combo costs $5. Daily cocktail specials (Monday Manhattans, Tuesday Tequila Sunrises, and Wednesday White Russians) are $4.
Relic
Rail drinks and a selection of ten draft beers are $3. Wine by the glass, sangria, martinis, and cocktails are all $5. Bar munchies, also $5, include mussels, potato-chickpea cakes, and frog’s legs. Daily from 4 to 7.
Science Club
Monday from 5 PM to 2 AM and Tuesday through Friday from 5 to 8, Yuengling and Pabst Blue Ribbon cost $3. Amstel Light, Guinness, and rail drinks cost $4. Two Chilean wines—one red, one white—cost $5 a glass or $20 a bottle.
Urbana
Every day from 4 to 7, bottles of Peroni and Estrella Galicia are $4, daily wine selections are $5, and four varieties of 11-inch gourmet pizza are $8. Starting at 5, fresh-shucked oysters—those eternal aphrodisiacs—are $1 each.
Vermilion
Weeknights from 4 to 7, house wines are $4. Mixed drinks—jade sour-apple martinis, fuchsia martinis, and King Street lemonade—are $4.50. Miller Lite, Yuengling, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on draft are $2.75. You can also score $4 nibbles, including French fries seasoned four ways.
FOR THRIFTY THEATERGOERS
National Theatre
Watch free dance performances every Monday night at the Helen Hayes Gallery, featuring a range of styles from Armenian folk to Broadway. Shows are at 6 and 7:30. Tickets are distributed 30 minutes before curtain on a first-come, first-served basis.
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Score pay-what-you-can tickets for the first two performances of every main-stage subscription-series production. After that, theatergoers age 25 and under can buy $15 tickets. A limited number of side-balcony “stampede seats” are also available for $15 two hours before showtime.
WALLET-FRIENDLY WINE NIGHTS
Chef Geoff’s Downtown
Every Monday, wine bottles—normally $29 to $195—are half price. The extensive roster features a selection of nearly 100 varieties hailing from Chile, France, Germany, and Italy, among others.
Teatro Goldoni
Pay half price for any bottle of wine under $100 Monday through Thursday from 5 to 8 and Friday until 9. Italian and American wines are available, plus some French sparklers.
