Our eternal gratitude to Danny Shapiro for masterminding the city’s best Serious Cocktail Bar and Logan Square’s friendliest local. Stake out a seat on one of Scofflaw’s Victorian-style settees, and the server will crack wise with you like an old friend. Then she’ll bring you a life-changing gin cocktail—say, the Forest Floor, made with Letherbee gin, which is delicately laced with the aroma of fir trees. Hang around the fireplace until midnight if you can—that’s when the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies come out and you start pricing nearby real estate to permanently make this one-of-a-kind spot your neighborhood bar.

Who’s there:The flannel shirted to the sequin skirted
What to order:Balata Garden ($8; pictured above): rhum agricole, lime, apricot liqueur, bitters, mint