IN TRANSIT: CHICAGO -- Let me admit right away that I found Weegee not through my own reportorial instincts or through the urgings of cocktail-addled friends, but through last week's New York Times. From the looks of the place on Sunday night, however, it seems that no one in Chicago reads that paper very much. And none of my half-dozen friends had ever heard of the place, or spent much time in the decidedly ungentrified Logan's Square neighborhood on the city's west side.

Weegee's is part of the mini-boomlet in studiedly retro cocktail lounges. In New York, this already seems to be the dominate mode of new bar openings, between places like (the late?) Death & Co. and PDT (Please Don't Tell), which should have opened by now beneath Crif Dogs in the East Village. But what Weegee's most reminded me of was my beloved Brooklyn Social in Carroll Gardens -- less pretentious, more quiet, and more reverent toward the hooch. We sampled Negronis (my new summer cocktail -- it's so tart that it's impossible to unthinkingly gulp down), Old Fashioneds, and even a perfectly frothed Grasshopper than one of compared to the late- and much-lamented McDonalds Shamrock Shake. It was too late for shuffleboard, but we did cram all of into the photo booth for a distorted group portrait that may have repulsed even Weegee himself.

Read more of Greg Lindsay's travel blog, IN TRANSIT.