Southern Hospitality
Beer and Chicken Vesuvio Sandwiches in Bridgeport

Bridgeport and the Sox. They have a pretty good thing going on. Far be it from you to mess with that sort of magic.

Yet even the best relationships occasionally need to rekindle the spark. And since you can't take the whole neighborhood on a romantic Tuscan getaway (though we admire you for even considering it), we'd like to introduce Rocky's, a new post–Cellular Field dining/drinking/celebrating/crying-in-your-beer destination, opening this week.

Don't worry—the South Side isn't going all North Side (read: froufrou) on you. Rocky's is still the kind of place you'll want to spend a late-summer afternoon, lolling in a well-stocked beer garden with a Blue Moon in one hand and a chicken Vesuvio sandwich in the other as you watch Buehrle fire another one across the plate (or Ozzie fire off his mouth).

Yet there's something about the interior's handsome dark-brick charm, dozen 50-inch plasmas and the fact that a sausage-and-pepper sandwich is considered an off-the-menu secret—it all coalesces into something just a bit nicer than your average neighborhood hang. For instance, the bulk of the menu, with its seared tuna salads and lemon bow-tie pastas (made from the recipe book of one of the owner's South Side Italian mothers), means it will be that much easier to talk your girlfriend into having dinner at a sports bar.

Even if she's a Cubs fan.