The hottest trend at bars these days isn’t a type of liquor, a method of mixology, or a tiki motif. The hottest trend at bars in Chicago is gaming. From skeeball to air hockey, bars are raising the bar on booze-friendly activities, and we’re all winners for it. Here’s where to get your game on in Chicago bars.

The perfect exclamation point to punctuate summer is a hog-filled culinary blowout, and Cochon 555 is rising to the occasion with a BBQ-themed event at Goose Island’s Barrel Warehouse over Labor Day weekend. In line with Cochon 555’s annual tour de force of porcine cookery, the organization is making an encore performance to cap off summer and showcase various styles of sustainable BBQ in Chicago.

Just as kids stock up on backpack supplies and head back to school, food-minded adults can do likewise at 312 Chicago. Culinary classes are back in action at the Loop’s revered Italian restaurant, and the headmaster is executive chef Luca Corazzina.