It’s that wonderful time of year when you suddenly have free nights again — and are looking to break up the dark monotony of January while getting a headstart on that New Year’s Resolution you made to be more social.

In the bleary aftermath of December’s extravagance, January’s feeling is more about mellower, back-pocket places to meet for a drink and a snack. Think of these casual hangouts as ideal destinations after work and before the late dinner reservation, or on a random Wednesday to escape the winter doldrums — when the group requires something more substantial foodwise than a bag of Lay’s from the back bar, or a plastic bowl of cheeseballs with each Miller High Life order (available on request at excellent Humboldt Park dive Archie’s Iowa & Rockwell Tavern, if you must know).

These five watering holes offer a lively rendezvous any day of the week to cure the winter blues, plus one-of-a-kind shareables that run the gamut from Baja-style tostadas to fried clams and Korean BBQ chicken smothered in cheese. Want other ideas for going out? Try our lists of solid mocktail spots for sober people in 12 neighborhoods and destination bars for elevated entertaining.

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Diego

West Town

Open Tuesday-Sunday; make a reservation

As the winter gloom settles over Chicago like a flabby shadow, the need for places evocative of sunnier, beachy locales takes on almost survivalist proportions. Enter Diego, the colorful, upbeat bar inside the former G&O Tavern space. Dressed like a Southern California boardwalk in beachy wood, Caribbean blue and puffy graffiti, Diego offers terrific Baja-style tostadas and tacos, plus agave-centric cocktails that hit like a bracing sea breeze. Consider the Flor Morada, a hibiscus-infused mezcal cocktail with fresh lime and fiery, treacly chipotle-piloncillo (whole cane sugar) syrup.

Snack on snapper ceviche in lime-tinged coconut milk with tomato, avocado and onion, which you’ll heap onto shards of just-fried corn tortilla that shatter with a satisfying, greasy crunch. Don’t skip the yellowfin tuna tartare tostada with pickled red onion, avocado and a drizzle of nutty salsa macha. Hefty tacos, like beer-battered pescado (cod) with cabbage and crema, satiate such that you might rethink heading elsewhere for dinner. That, a healthy list of mocktails and the allure of one more round amid the potted palms and relaxed pulse of ‘90s hip hop, far from the cold, gray Chicago winter outside.

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Half Shell

Lincoln Park

Open daily; no reservations

From The Oyster Bar at Shaw’s Crab House to Queen Mary Tavern, there’s no shortage of bars proffering topnotch seafood bites in our fair city. But the one that’s outlasted them all still feels like a secret hiding in plain sight — because 55-year-old Half Shell is located below street level. A lacquered-wood bar the length of the room takes up most of this cash-only basement tavern, which unfurls beneath multicolored twinkle lights strung up year-round. By 7 p.m. every stool will be taken, so consider arriving shortly after it opens, at 4 p.m. on weekdays and noon on weekends.

Bracing negronis in tulip-shaped glasses and frosted mugs of Bud Light wash down one of the best raw oyster deals in town ($12.90 per half dozen Blue Points), served with head-clearing cocktail sauce and saltines. You’ll want to add an order of thickly battered fried clams and maybe a couple of buttery crab cakes.

Should you stay for dinner (you should, for the impeccably seasoned steamed Dungeness, snow or king crab, served atop a heap of fries and inexplicable white bread slices), dessert is included — in the form of an individually wrapped lollipop protruding from beneath the fry pile. This delightful quirk purportedly began in the 1970s when a table asked then-owner Danny Denizon if the bar offered dessert. His grandson Anthony keeps this tradition alive and this stellar joint running like clockwork, with help from attentive, refreshingly no-nonsense waitstaff.

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Dancen

Lincoln Square

Open Wednesday-Monday; no reservations

Dancen is a gloriously confounding little joint — Is it a bar? Is it a restaurant? — that serves some of the city’s best traditional Korean bar food. It utterly refuses to outdo itself on decor and amenities, with banquet chairs and disposable beer cups, blue and orange color-blocked walls and a projector screen displaying catchy K-pop videos. The real showpiece here is its glowing open-fire grill behind the bar, whose licking flames reach ceiling-ward every several minutes, because almost everyone in the room is ordering the fire chicken.

This aptly named Korean shareable starts with chicken thighs marinated in chili powder, gochujang, black pepper and rice syrup. The deboned morsels spend upwards of 20 minutes on the grill, till smoky char permeates every juicy, fall-apart bite. Sure, a crisp Cass Korean lager or bowl of makgeolli (rice wine) might soothe your burning palate. But your best bet is ordering fire chicken with a blanket of melted white and yellow cheese.

Dancen’s drinks-loving food menu stocks plenty of other delights, from crunchy, chewy seafood pancakes with heady soy-vinegar dipping sauce to charred shrimp and pork kabobs and fried pork skins with bee pollen-tinged sesame oil. Better make that a “pitcher” (a.k.a. Liter bottle) of Cass and stay awhile.     

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The Press Room

West Loop

Open Tuesday-Saturday; make a reservation

Like a dark refuge from the relentless lights and brass of the hectic West Loop, The Press Room scintillates with sexy lighting and cozy subterranean vibes. This place has evolved through a few identities since opening eight years ago as part of The Publishing House bed and breakfast. Its current incarnation as a speakeasy-style wine bar best suits its locale — though you might miss it if you’re hightailing it down Washington Boulevard with your nose in your phone.

It’s a great happy hour option, between 4 and 6 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, when freshly shucked oysters cost $1 apiece, alongside $8 Old Fashioneds and martinis (for non-drinkers, there’s an N/A pina colada). Chef de cuisine Christian Sia also fries and dresses quail in the style of Nashville hot chicken and composes beautiful tartines and charcuterie boards. But don’t sleep on the crab dip, a rich, melty fusion of Cajun spices and Tex-Mex queso flecked with diced mirepoix and hunks of sweet crab. It comes with both housemade chips and bread from Edgewater bakery Phlour — for good reason.

“For the gooiest bites, I go with bread,” said partner Paul Mena. “When I want crunch and texture, especially with the last few bites, the chips are incredible.”

An accompanying $11 glass of “Giggle Juice” is the best way to get acquainted with The Press Room’s standout lineup of mostly natural wines. “Whatever wine we find that fits our focus and budget — a pecorino [Italian white] you’ve never heard of or wine from a smaller region in France,” Mena added. “You might see the same for a few days in one week, or it might disappear in a day.”

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Marz Community Brewery

Bridgeport

Open daily; Taco Sublime available Tuesday-Sunday

Down a quiet, industrial stretch of Iron St., Marz Brewing beckons from behind a brick and glass block facade emblazoned with Marz in neon. A central wraparound bar anchors this roomy Bridgeport taproom that’s ideal for entertaining small crowds of friends, colleagues or family, with plenty of seating configurations, party games, an arcade room and a small stage for live performances — including Thursday karaoke if you’re in need of a midwinter pick-me-up.

Twenty-four inventive draught options span churros con leche milk stout, gose seasoned with sage and red pepper flakes, cocktails and housemade nonalcoholic concoctions. Marz’s kitchen is helmed by popup-in-residence, Taco Sublime, which slings decadent chihuahua cheese-encrusted tacos filled with succulent sautéed shrimp or charred carne asada, elotes heaped with Taki dust and two kinds of cheese, and a griddled smash burger that stands among the city’s (crowded) best.

“We try to pay homage to classics by doing them in a sublime way,” said Sublime Hospitality partner Khaled Simon. In fact, he and partner Haley Pham are planning a permanent storefront next door to Marz Brewing later this year, “our first own spot with a twist on what we already do,” he hinted. In the meantime, you can also try Sublime’s tasty bar bites at California desert-inspired bar Desert Hawk in Wicker Park, from Tuesday to Sunday.

Maggie Hennessy is a Chicago-based food and drink writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Bon Appetit and Food & Wine. Follow her on Instagram.