When you say the words mini bar your first thought may be the little fridge in a hotel room. Well, that's part of where the concept for the name came from. Minibar, located at 3341 N. Halsted St., wants to be and is like a hotel bar. It's a place to meet with friends, have a cocktail or two, and head out for the evening. It is Mini in the fact that it only has an occupancy capacity of about 100 people. They try to never go over about 90% occupancy to allow plenty of room for their patrons.

It's a conversation bar with cocktail service from a very abundant, very attractive, uniformed staff. Not wanting to compete with other bars on Halsted St., they're always trying to come up with some new concepts. They have upscale cocktails at a very reasonable price for what you get. They infuse their own liquor with common and unique flavors like jalapeño pepper. Yes, you can get a jalapeño pepper martini. I'm told it's something you either love or hate. Tuesdays are Tequila Tuesdays with over 20 types of tequila to choose from and often have specific brands available for sampling. Although the bar is more of a conversation bar, it has started a new night with live DJ's. They have started "Indulge" on Sunday nights with local live DJ's spinning vinyl. It's still a bar not so much about the music and definitely not about dancing, but more about stimulating good times and conversation.

Minibar is also Chicago's first NON Smoking bar. It has proven to be a welcomed change in the bar scene. Few people have found problem with it. If you do want to smoke you can go outside and smoke under the heated awning in front of the bar.

I had the opportunity to meet with one of the owners, John Dalton. He's originally from Houston, TX. He moved to Evanston about 10 years ago to attend North Western University. Some of you may remember him from Roscoe's Sunday attraction - Post Office ­ He was one of the postman. In addition to that he was the operations manager at Roscoe for about 6 years.

I asked him what he thought was the toughest part of owning and running a full service bar. He answered that all of the day to day operations were the toughest part. He works all day to make sure that everything will run smoothly at night when they open. It seems to be working. When I asked him how business was since he opened in October 2005, and he told me it was much better than he had expected. He also told me that there was no way he could do it all without the help of his business partner, Stu Zirin.

As far as what's in store for the future. He told me he's still at the stage of worrying about what's going on this week. However he did tell me that they are going to be opening a wine bar next door. They plan to have it open sometime in June.