The Brakeman

Half beer hall, half rec room, The Brakeman is NoHo Hospitality’s American beer-and-games hall on Parker’s Alley — and when we strolled the alley, its garage doors were the thing that kept catching our eye, opening the whole room onto the bricks in warm weather. Inside, 4,000 square feet and some 200 seats split between two bars — one for rotating Midwest craft drafts, one for classic spirits and seasonal frozen drinks — plus big screens for the game and a floor of foosball, shuffleboard, and beer pong. The showpiece: eight-seat tap tables with their own four-tap pour-it-yourself systems, and the bars famously run on tokens from the booth up front. Live DJs take over Friday and Saturday nights.

The genius move is the food: buckets of fried chicken, honey-butter biscuits, and farmstand sides come from Penny Red’s, its adjoining counter-service neighbor, so the beer hall never had to learn to cook. It’s high on our list for the next big-group, big-game occasion — the kind of place you book when everyone needs something to do with their hands.