We’ve been trying to get back to Rocks for a while, but Rocks trivia is not for the casual trivia night player. Rocks is hard core.
Outside, it looks benign enough. Located at the corner of Schubert & Lakewood, Rocks is in a deceptively quiet neighborhood. It’s really easy to find free parking. Walk in at 7:15pm, however, and you will almost certainly walk back out at 7:16pm, because the place will be packed and there is no way you are getting a seat for trivia.
That’s right. You have to get there before 7:00 to get a table at Rocks, maybe 7:05 to get seats at the bar. You have to be hard core about trivia night to get a seat. However, if you can get there early enough to snag a table, Rocks is actually a very fun time.
We’ve twice (including last week) had to leave Rocks and scramble to find another trivia night because we couldn’t get seats. This time, we decided to be super hard core and arrived at 6:45pm, to find just four empty tables, one practically inside the unisex bathroom. (We did not sit there.)
As far as specials go, Rocks has some pretty great ones. Tuesday night specials include half-price bottles of wine, $3.50 pints of the beer of the month, and half-price appetizers from 6-8pm. Arriving early, we took advantage of the appetizer specials for a grand total of $6.50 for food for two. And although it’s hard to beat half-priced wine, Rocks also boasts over 70 scotches and bourbons for certain team members who are into that kind of thing.
No pictures this time, so here is the recipe for Rocks’ White Trash Nachos. Try it at home!
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Trivia begins promptly at 8pm. The normal MC, Kevin, was off for the evening, so Tim (not Schoolyard Tim) filled in. Tim is your basic, no-frills, MC: no stage name, no costume, very little banter, he just reads the questions and answers and updates the score. Not necessarily a bad thing. A MC with a lot of personality can be just delightful (Sr. Mary Monistat) or verge on annoying (Trivia Jack). Tim kept questions moving at a good pace and graded quickly – thumbs up, especially considering the large number of teams.
Rocks’ trivia consists of six rounds: general knowledge, television, movies, music, theme (chosen by the previous week’s second place team), and a second general knowledge round worth double points. This week’s theme round was “losers”: losing sports teams, the movie Loser, songs about losers, etc. Questions are easy to moderately difficult, and we had a couple great guesses. Many of this week’s audio questions were heavily metal, meaning we did not do so well, but the round was objectively well run. The only thing that could make the trivia better is some kind of handout/picture round.
First place wins 25% off the night’s tab and second place gets to choose the theme round for the following week. Also, shots are awarded to the team with the best name. We didn’t hear which team actually won, but in our hearts, it was the genius Team “A Seal Walked Into a Club…” who dominated the entire game, but then lost in the last round by one point.
Fun trivia night, just plan on being there early.
UPDATE: Read about our second trip to Rocks here.
Rocks Lincoln Park
1301 W. Schubert Ave., Chicago
8pm to about 10:30pm
Free admission
3 paws (out of 4)
Here Comes Treble is a group of Chicagoans who want to share our love of trivia nights with the rest of the city. Follow us as we search for the best pub quiz in town!
