Live from Peoria, Illinois, it’s Saturday Night Cheeseburger starring this week’s host, Last Chance Bar and Grill and featuring The Ready For Prime Beef Player, Marty Wombacher. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome this week’s host, Last Chance Bar and Grill!
It's spitting rain as we make our way from downtown Peoria to the north side of town in search of tonight's cheeseburger. Once again, I've called ahead and pre-ordered my cheeseburger as the kitchen at tonight's destination closes at 10PM and I don't get out of work till 10PM.
Here we are at tonight's destination, The Last Chance Bar & Grill. The neon sign hangs at the end of the bar which faces the road.
The outside of the bar has a bit of a roadhouse feel to it, something like you'd see in the Blues Brothers movie.
Wow, it's crowded in here tonight! But, as I'll show you later, it's a long-ass bar in here, so I'm sure I can find a seat, let's go look for one.
Not only did I find a seat, I found the pretty bartender, Sam, who went and got my pre-ordered cheeseburger. This evening is falling into place perfectly!
I got the bacon cheeseburger and while it looks good, there's something about it that needs fixing.
I don't like the way the bacon is hanging off the burger, it's going to make it hard to eat, I need to do a little operating here.
There we go, it's perfectly uniformed now. Check out the bun, they grilled it, nice!
It's all that and a bag of Kitchen Cooked potato chips.
I've added some mustard and the cheeseburger is ready for consumption.
Now that looks a lot better, time to try out this week's burger.
It's delicious, do you think I put enough mustard on it?
Okay, I wolfed down the burger and chips, let's work off dinner by checking out the bar. Here's the view from my seat. If you look real closely you can see an unintentional obligatory mirror shot off to the far right.
Sturdy overhead lights hang over the bar and it's a very long bar. as I said when we entered the place. You can't really tell from this shot, but let's go down to the other end of the bar and I'll show you.
See what I mean? I think this just may be the longest bar in Peoria, if anybody knows of one that's longer, let me know.
The taps aren't too exciting here, probably won't get much on the Spike-O-Meter ratings system...
But they do have a very large selection of specialty bottled beers, so that makes up for it, in my book at least. Plus I'm just drinking Budweiser, so what do I care?
Let's go check out the back room and see what's happening back there.
There's two pool tables and a lot of people back here.
They have a smaller back bar here, so you don't have to walk all the way up to the front room for a drink.
Angie's working the bar back here and she served me up a Seindeldian plate and glass of nothing. Thanks Angie!
Meanwhile, back at the front bar, Sam's busy filling drink orders.
These three pretty women were seated directly behind me at a table, so I asked for a photo and they happily posed for the MBIP camera. From left: Sabrina, Kelsy and Callie.
There's a dining area at the far end of the bar.
A shot of the bar from the dining area.
And I thought we'd end the night with an intentional obligatory mirror shot from the dining room. See you all tomorrow.
My Cheeseburger
The cheeseburger at Last Chance Bar & Grill is a solid, upstanding cheeseburger. The two things that took it up a grade for me was the grilled bun (why doesn’t everyone grill the bun?) and the hickory smoked bacon. The bacon was especially good, smoky, tasty and crisp, it really was the star of this cheeseburger show.
There’s fifteen varieties of cheeseburgers on the menu including: a chili cheeseburger, mushroom swiss burger, a patty melt and the fire burger, which is a burger dipped in buffalo sauce, topped with the aforementioned bacon, pepperjack cheese and jalapenos.
The Last Chance is also known for being one of the best breakfast spots in town. The kitchen opens at 6AM, Monday through Friday and at 7:00AM on weekends. There’s also a daily lunch special that changes Monday through Friday.
Cheeseburger Rating
Two and a half Wimpys, a good solid burger with a grilled bun and I recommend you get the bacon to top it off.
Last Chance Bar & Grill
2713 W 2nd St.
Peoria
309-243-5036
Further reading: You Gotta Eat, DIVE in Peoria and Peoria Night Out.
Bonus Photo By Tim "Clacky" Clack!
My Australian mate sent in this Cardboard Box Man sighting from the kitchen where he's a chef in the land Down Under. Aaaahhhh! And I've just discovered his Tumblr page that's filled with more photos from the lens of Clacky. Great photography, Clacky! Cheers!
