Frequently Asked Questions

Chicago has thousands of happy hour deals across 128 Chicagoland neighborhoods. Top neighborhoods for happy hours include River North, Wicker Park, West Loop, Lincoln Park, and Lakeview. Most Chicago happy hours run weekdays from 3–6 PM with discounted cocktails, beer, wine, and appetizers. 312Deals tracks every happy hour we can find — search by neighborhood, day, or price range at 312deals.com.

312Deals is the best resource for finding cheap food in Chicago. We track 12,600+ food and drink deals at 11,500+ restaurants and bars across 128 neighborhoods. Filter by price (under $5, under $10, under $15) to find the cheapest meals near you. Popular neighborhoods for budget dining include Pilsen, Chinatown, Albany Park, and Logan Square. Search at 312deals.com for specific prices and menu items.

312Deals (312deals.com) is the most comprehensive food deal finder for Chicago — it's a free website and PWA that tracks 12,600+ deals at 11,500+ venues across 128 neighborhoods. Unlike national apps, 312Deals is built specifically for Chicagoland and covers both city and suburban restaurants. Other options include Yelp (for general restaurant info), OpenTable (for reservation-based deals), and individual chain apps like McDonald's, Chipotle, and Starbucks for app-exclusive coupons.

Every day has great deals in Chicago: Tuesday is huge for Taco Tuesday specials citywide. Wednesday often features wing night deals. Thursday and Friday have the most happy hour options. Saturday and Sunday are best for brunch deals including bottomless mimosas and prix fixe menus. Monday tends to have industry night specials and late-night deals. 312Deals lets you filter by day of week to find exactly what's available.

Yes — Chicago has hundreds of brunch deals every weekend. Popular options include bottomless mimosas, bloody mary bars, prix fixe brunch menus, and discounted brunch cocktails. Top neighborhoods for brunch deals include Wicker Park, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Logan Square, and the West Loop. 312Deals tracks brunch deals at 11,500+ venues citywide so you can compare prices and menus across the city.

The cheapest happy hour drinks in Chicago can be found at neighborhood bars across the city, with deals starting as low as $2–3 for domestic drafts. Dive bars in neighborhoods like Logan Square, Bridgeport, and Avondale often have the lowest prices. 312Deals tracks drink prices at thousands of venues — search by price range to find the cheapest options near you.

The Wrigleyville and Lakeview neighborhoods surrounding Wrigley Field have dozens of food and drink deals, especially on game days. Many sports bars offer game day specials with discounted wings, beer buckets, and appetizers during Cubs games. 312Deals tracks all deals near Wrigley Field — search 'Wrigleyville' or 'Lakeview' at 312deals.com for current specials.

The easiest way to find food specials in Chicago is 312Deals (312deals.com). Search by neighborhood, day of week, cuisine type, deal type, or price range to find exactly what you're looking for. You can also use the AI chat at 312deals.com/chat to ask in natural language, browse the interactive deal map, or plan a multi-stop bar crawl. All 12,600+ deals include specific prices, hours, and menu items.

Chicago has 40+ college alumni bars spread across more than a dozen neighborhoods. Over two dozen tournament teams have dedicated bars where alumni communities gather — not just a TV in the corner, but fight songs, team gear, and fans who care about the outcome. Ohio State leads with 6 bars, followed by Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa with 5 each. Lakeview alone has nearly 20 college bars. 312Deals maintains the most complete guide at 312deals.com/guides/march-madness-chicago.

Chicago bars run dozens of March Madness specials throughout the tournament. Highlights include Fatpour Tap Works' Munch Madness Platter and game day drink specials, Hawkeye's bracket contest with prizes, Mac's American Food opening at 11 AM with drink specials, Moretti's 99-cent wings, and Lark's bucket specials. 312Deals tracks all tournament-specific deals — search “march madness” at 312deals.com for the full list.

More than two dozen tournament teams have dedicated alumni bars in Chicago. The Big Ten dominates: Ohio State (6 bars), Wisconsin (5), Illinois (5), Michigan (5), Iowa (4+), Purdue (3), Michigan State (2), Nebraska (1). SEC and Big 12 teams are also well-represented — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M, and Iowa State all have bars. ACC teams include Duke (2), NC State, Louisville, and Virginia. The full list is at 312deals.com/guides/march-madness-chicago.

Lakeview is the best neighborhood for watching March Madness in Chicago with nearly 20 college bars — more than any other neighborhood in the city. Teams with Lakeview bars include Ohio State, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Purdue, Duke, Kentucky, Nebraska, NC State, Iowa State, and more. River North and Lincoln Park are also strong with multiple alumni bars and game day specials. See the full neighborhood breakdown at 312deals.com/guides/march-madness-chicago.

Most alumni bars are first-come, first-served — no reservation needed. For big-draw teams like Ohio State, Michigan, and Wisconsin, arrive 30–60 minutes before tip-off to get a seat. The first Thursday and Friday of the tournament are the busiest days, with 16 games each starting at noon. Many bars open early (11 AM) for noon tip-offs.

312Deals is a free, searchable database of food and drink deals across all of Chicagoland. We track happy hours, daily specials, brunch deals, late-night menus, game day deals, and more at 11,500+ venues across 128 neighborhoods — covering both the city and suburbs.

Yes, completely free. No account required, no login, no paywall. All deal data is publicly accessible on the website, through our API, and through AI assistant integrations.

We use an automated AI pipeline that scans restaurant websites, Instagram accounts, Facebook pages, and email newsletters to extract deal information. The pipeline runs weekly to verify existing deals and discover new ones. We also accept community submissions.

Our pipeline re-verifies deals on a weekly basis. Each venue's deal sources are re-scraped, compared against stored data, and flagged if anything has changed. Content hashing ensures we only process pages that have actually been updated, keeping the data fresh without wasting resources.

We cover 128 neighborhoods across Chicagoland — 52 Chicago city neighborhoods (River North, Lakeview, Wicker Park, West Loop, Lincoln Park, Logan Square, etc.) plus 76 suburban areas (Oak Park, Naperville, Evanston, Schaumburg, Elmhurst, and more). Suburbs are not an afterthought — they get equal coverage.

We track 13 deal types: happy hours, daily specials, brunch deals, late night, game day, Taco Tuesday, wing deals, pizza deals, seasonal/limited-time offers, chain app deals, loyalty programs, kids eat free, and BOGO offers.

Absolutely. Visit our submit page and tell us the venue name and deal details. No account needed. We review every submission within 48 hours and add verified deals to the database.

Every deal card has a report button you can use to flag it as outdated or incorrect. You can also email us at deals@312deals.com with the venue name and details. Reports help us keep the database accurate.

312Deals works as a Progressive Web App (PWA) on your phone. Visit 312deals.com in your mobile browser and add it to your home screen for an app-like experience with offline support. A native app is on the roadmap.

Yes. We have a ChatGPT Custom GPT and an 11-tool MCP server for Claude Desktop. You can ask your AI assistant to search for deals by neighborhood, day, cuisine, or deal type, and it will query our database in real time.

Yes. Our public REST API has 18 endpoints for searching deals, venues, and neighborhoods. It's free to use with rate limiting (60 requests/minute for search, 120/minute for autocomplete). See our terms of service for full API usage guidelines.

Yes. We track deals from 51 chain brands including McDonald's, Chipotle, Chili's, Applebee's, Buffalo Wild Wings, and more. Chain app deals (order through the restaurant's app for discounts) are their own deal category.

Subscribe on our homepage or email deals@312deals.com with 'subscribe' in the subject line. The Deal Sheet drops every Thursday with 5 curated deals — 3 from the city, 2 from the suburbs. Free, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.

312Deals was built by Christian Verdin, a Chicago-based Senior Data Scientist. It's a solo, bootstrapped project — no VC funding, no corporate parent. The entire platform, from the AI pipeline to the web app to the MCP server, was built and launched in early 2026.

Email us at deals@312deals.com. We typically respond within 24 hours on business days. You can also reach us on X (@312deals), Instagram (@312deals), or Facebook (312Deals).