Groupons tend to be offered by restaurants and businesses that are in trouble. If you’ve got a lot of customers paying full price, there’s no reason to add a lot of customers who aren’t. If only we had remembered this sooner…

Several months ago, one of us picked up a $25 dining Groupon to Bottom Lounge, the West Loop music venue with a full kitchen and bar. The place has been open in the current location for a few years and both of us had great experiences there in its early days. At one time we would have put it among our favorite concert spots, both for their choice of musicians and their excellent pre-show pub grub, but over the last year or so, the gig calender had shrunk and decreased in quality; Bottom Lounge had more or less fallen off both our radars.

So, when the two of us were pondering a quick, cheap dinner near the Loop, we printed out the Groupon and ran over, confident that our meal would be like the chow of yore.

Spoiler Alert: One of us wanted to throw up on the train ride home.

You used to be that hidden gem under the El tracks… (source)

When we arrived and looked over the menu, our old favorites were gone… The Lady seemed to remember a hearty mac and cheese and the Fellow recalled a delicious plowman burger with ham, red onions and other tasty toppings. No matter. Even without the favorites, a few of the dishes being offered still sounded good, so naively we proceeded.

We picked onion rings and a soft pretzel to start, thinking we’d get something homemade. The rings, fried with a nice cornmeal-like breading, lacked proper seasoning, but were tasty enough to keep us happy. This high point of the meal was fleeting though, since the pretzel turned out to be just that ubiquitous microwave kind, topped with a heart-stopping amount of salt. We couldn’t believe it.

For entrees — It has to get better, right? — we shared plates. A bacon/apple/goat cheese flatbread was dry and tasteless. Some balsalmic (or any liquid for that matter) would have gone a long way to help this “cracker,” but instead the only moisture came from the rubbery, soggy bacon. This was followed up by the three cheese grilled cheese sandwich — greasy even by grilled cheese standards and probably the source of the night’s later nausea — and the tomato basil soup — pedestrian at best, though quite possibly even canned.

Oh Bottom Lounge, how far you have fallen! What happened to your nice hightop tables and homemade bar bites? In their place, a worn decor and prepackaged meal.

We can easily imagine you as an episode of Kitchen Nightmares where Gordon Ramsay comes in and explains to you — tears in your eyes and jaw on the floor while America laughs at your delusions — that of course no one wants canned soup and microwave pizza. “But fresh tomatoes are so expensive,” you’ll cry. “Do you know how much time it would take to make our own pretzels?”

Quit $&*#ing crying and season the #$*&ing onion rings! (source)

Maybe we’ll quit kicking you while you’re down, Bottom Lounge. No one actually threw up after all, but it was definitely the worst meal either of us had had in the past year. If we ever stop by again for a show — a possibility becoming less and less likely with your thinning event calendar — we’ll just plan on grabbing a bite elsewhere first. At this point, you’re making it hard to even trust the beer.