First impressions are that the place is a restaurant with a small pub attached. But through the front door and off to the right is a staircase that winds downstairs to a lounge where you finally discover where the cool people hang out.

Amidst the olive colored walls and burgundy velvet curtains is a small dance floor (8 people dancing and it's crowded), a nook for the DJ booth and a multi-level bar. The bar is interesting because it is split by two rooms. In one room, 4 patrons can belly-up to the counter in tall bar stools. In the adjacent room, the floor raises up two steps but the counter of the bar remains at the same height. Bar stools in this room are more like chairs since the bar's countertop is only about 30 inches off the floor. On this side of the bar, there are seats for about 10 more swilling guests.

We'd like to mention their selection of beers on tap, but the lounge doesn't have any. You could be boring and hang upstairs by their mini-pub, but that area was about as dead as the bar at the No-Tell Motel over on the Roosevelt Boulevard. Not to short-change Filo's, but they do have a nice selection of bottled brews for the imbibing. It's probably better this way anyway - I can't remember the last time I went to place that featured dancing and good beer on tap.

The downstairs lounge also has about a half-dozen "tables-for-two" and a back room where larger groups can set up shop and talk about how great it is to loiter amongst the beautiful people.  The crowd at this subterranean dwelling consists of 20 - 30somethings. Since there isn't much room to mingle, Filo's lends itself to being more of an intimate date place.

Adding to the Filo atmosphere are walls decorated by amateur artwork consisting of pastels, photos and sketches literally stapled to the walls. Mounting these pieces of art in actual frames would probably give them an air of commercialism and connotations of "sell-out." On the other hand, maybe someone was just too darn cheap to buy frames. Regardless, "Torso du Summer 1997" by Katie was the most memorable piece.

It's hard to tell what makes Filo's exude a laid back atmosphere. Is it the low lighting? Is it the mellow techno-jazz music? Is it the "don't talk to me attitude" of the bar tenders & beautiful patrons? Yeah, it's probably all of this. But isn't that why they call it a lounge?