Ah, Chris Bukowski. The Bachelor franchise contestant and itinerant Chicagoan, who holds the record for most series appearances, showed up last night for a sixth time on Bachelor in Paradise, which premiered on ABC.
Bukowski has been out in the real world since 2015, having formally "retired" from TV following five unsuccesful attempts at finding romance. Since then, he's been learning to live his life without the dramatic influence of Chris Harrison. He's loved. He's lost. And he's also opened a restaurant in University Village.
Image: Google Maps
The Bracket Room, a sports bar at 1315 South Halsted boasting 50 TVs, made its debut in 2017, and has since spawned a second location in Arlington, Virginia. Last night's Paradise episode featured all sorts of shots establishing Chris as a dedicated restaurateur: walking in front of his restaurant, sitting in his restaurant, making phone calls in his restaurant. By all accounts, he is a thriving businessman, and it's no small feat to keep a spot in the city open for more than two years.
One small problem, though: According to Yelpers, the Bracket Room is not very good.
Overall, the restaurant is sitting at a three-star rating out of five, but its reviews are trending aggressively downward.
Take this one, from Elwood L. in June, who declared: "Not kidding the first food hit and an hour later the rest came. Seriously, an hour for a quesadilla. The soup took an hour???"
Read Elwood L.'s review of Bracket Room on Yelp
Or C R., who was at the bar on a night that the Golden State Warriors were playing the Houston Rockets and instead found every TV turned to….the news:
Read C R.'s review of Bracket Room on Yelp
Service appears to be a little spotty:
Read Melanie N.'s review of Bracket Room on Yelp
But, a silver lining: If Bukowski is around when you visit the restaurant, you might actually enjoy yourself:
Read Daniel Y.'s review of Bracket Room on Yelp
Fingers crossed that the sixth appearance is the charm for Bukowski — because if this whole restaurant thing doesn't work out, it'd be nice to have true love to fall back on.