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| - Cowboy Monkey is a solidly mediocre bar. I don't dance, but I've been there plenty of times for food or for the Sunday-night trivia. I'll get my biggest complaint out of the way first: their kitchen is closed during the winter. What the hell? I understand why their beer garden isn't open during the winter, but the kitchen!? At least they're okay with you bringing your own food for that part of the year. When the kitchen *is* open their menu is Mexican with a couple of tweaks, and I've enjoyed everything I've had to eat there. The liquor and beer selection is about average for Champaign. The beer garden outside is pleasant; it's closed during the winter but on cool fall nights they set up space heaters so you can stay fairly comfortable.
I went to Cowboy Monkey for Big Dave's Trivia Night every Sunday for a long time. Trivia officially started at 7, with Dave usually getting there around 7:15 and the thing actually starting at 7:30. On trivia night the place was packed, though, and you had to be there by 6:30 at the latest if you wanted a seat.
The bar has a pretty limited amount of seating, and they don't seem to know how to use it. There were multiple occasions when we found an empty table in the bar but there were no chairs, so either we'd stand the whole time or we'd have to wait thirty minutes for one of the bartenders to go grab some chairs from Guido's (which I believe has the same owners). We got there one week and the inside and beer garden were both full, but there was an empty table outside with some patio chairs stacked up nearby; the guy working told us that he wouldn't set up the chairs for us because he didn't have enough servers working. We offered to go inside to the bar when we wanted drinks, but he still said no. Some weird management decisions at this place.
As long as I'm griping, I want to mention the bathrooms. The locks on the doors were always broken, making it seem like the restrooms were intended for multiple people--they weren't. This became clear after you washed your hands and realized that the paper-towel dispenser was located above the urinal some guy was currently using. Fix your locks, cheapskates.
During the summer this is a nice place to sit outside and have dinner and drinks. If you can't find a table, though, don't sweat it; just walk to one of the many other good bars in downtown Champaign. We started going to the Tuesday-night trivia at Jupiter's at the Crossing, which is run by the same guy but which offers year-round food and unlimited seating.
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