Local Option: Hamster on a Piano

UPDATE June 2009: Local Option trivia has moved to Flounder’s Bar & Grill.

For this week’s second trivia event, we headed to Local Option at 1102 W. Webster.  Our last visit here was unsatisfying due to the music round (disco music).  This time around, we were informed that the music round would be 90s music, which had all of our hopes up.  Trivia is advertised to start at 8 pm, and there were only a few tables left at 7:45.  One of the downsides to this trivia venue is the total absence of any sort of drink or food special.  They have an excellent variety of beers on draft, but they are all pricey.  Food is mostly seafood, and other standard pub fare.  Servings are generous, as evidenced by the calamari poor boy sandwich, where calamari was literally overflowing off the plate.  Our bill for beers, one entree, and one appetizer was $67 without tip, so be prepared to put down more than you expect.

We had an end table, next to a couple (Tony and his girlfriend/wife/friend) whose team name “Eat It Or Wear It” had a story behind it.  We chose our team name “Hamster On Piano” based on a recently viewed youtube video.  Trivia format was seven rounds.  Categories consisted of music, matching, photo, “dead or alive” (knowing whether a celebrity was still living or not), 2 general trivia, and the final round is Double Point Round.  There was a free round of shots for the best team name, although the winner is virtually decided by the MC, who has pretty poor taste.  We particularly liked “Barack Also Beats Paper” and “America’s Going Brazilian…No More Bush!”  Even our team name was superior to the winners, which was “Brangelina and Jonifer’s Adopted Babies Would Kick Your Adopted Babies’ Asses.”  Totally lame.

As for the trivia itself, it was pretty average.  Questions were of a moderate difficulty and had good variety.  However, we were particularly irked by one question:

“What is the area of shallow submerged water between the shore and deep ocean water called?”

We answered “Shelf” but the answer was “Continental shelf.”  Complaints fell on deaf ears, and we were not given credit.  Another bothersome aspect was the music round.  Despite being a genre our team enjoyed (90s music), we feel they played too much of the song.  Nearly all of the music snippets should have been stopped prior to the lyrics, but most of them were not.  This not only made for a less enjoyable round, but also an extremely lengthy one.

Positives:

1)  Good selection of beers

2)  Decent food

3)  Easy parking

Negatives:

1)  Irritating music round

2)  Not the best MC

3)  No drink/food specials, so very expensive

Overall, given the sheer number of reliably good trivia locales in Chicago, Local Option has too many downsides to warrant going back on a regular basis.  Questions we missed to follow shortly.

Local Option
1102 W. Webster Ave., Chicago
8:00pm – 10:45pm
Free admission