It's Free Bacon Night at the Triple Rock Social Club

Courtesy of Royal Bacon Society

Go to the bar, bring home the bacon. What could be better?
Let me get this straight. I purchase a drink (which, hello, I'm at Triple Rock -- I was gonna do that anyway) and get a free basket (8 to 10 strips!) of crispy, sweet, fatty bacon? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

The free bacon is offered Wednesdays from 9-11pm, or until they run out. Triple Rock's Andy Ranker says the staff bakes the bacon earlier in the day (though he's not sure if that makes it any healthier), then they reheat in the evening around 9. According to Ranker, the tradition started because Triple Rock's owner heard about a bacon-in-the-bar offer at a place in his hometown, Chicago, and wanted to replicate the tradition in Minneapolis.

Ranker says, the response has been positive. "People like bacon," he says, in what could be the understatement of the year.

If you need another reason (as if!) to hit up the Triple Rock, here it is: monthly trivia nights (the next will likely be Jan. 26, but I'll give you the heads up in Jan.) If you've ever known anyone into trivia, you know the addiction is not all that different from bacon cravings.

Triple Rock's trivia trademark (say that three times fast!) is their taste round, which supplements a music round, a visual round, and questions on currents events, sports, history, film, and TV. The taste round involves sampling and correctly identifying an ingredient. At the most recent trivia night, participants sipped samples of adult eggnog and had to identify the alcohol, which turned out to be Southern Comfort.


Winners of trivia night get a $30 beer tab from the bar, but there are other gifts even if you don't win. For instance, the losing team of the night may receive a Polaroid photo with the trivia hosts (a couple of U of M grad students) to take home. It's not as fattening as bacon, but it is sorta sweet and a little twisted.