Crown Liquors (2821 N. Milwaukee Ave., Logan Square, 773-252-9741) will never win the award for most innovative bar in the city. There are no showy cocktails or flashy accents on the walls. Instead, this newbie, tacked onto a longstanding liquor store at a prominent intersection, is a bar for the no-nonsense drinker who just wants a beer and a quiet place to sit.

The suds selection in particular stands out, with local and international craft options in bottles and cans as well as a few tasting flights available (the ORD-MDW, for instance, gets you four samples of offbeat offerings from Chicago brewing outfits such as Local Option and Revolution for $12). You can pair any of them with pizza purchased down the street at by-the-slice shop Dante's, one of them best pizza spots in town (don't worry, you can bring your slice into the bar). 

Should you be in the mood for more adventurous alcohol, the bar does have one fun gimmick. When the owners purchased the space, they found a bunch of random, cheap bottles of liquor in a storeroom. To work through them, they invented a dice game: for $3, you can roll two dice, and whatever number they add up to determines the shot you'll receive. 

Here's what else we saw when we stopped in on Saturday night.