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133 W. North Ave., (410) 545-0444

Joe Squared is already firmly established as a pizza destination. If they served the stuff by the slice--or at least knocked a couple of bucks off the price of a whole--we might just start living off their arty pie. If you?re there for pizza, it might never occur to you that Joe Squared is also, allegedly, a drinking destination. The atmosphere is murky, if not, well, lame. The mauve carpeting and Holiday Inn circa 1990 furniture don't do much for the senses, and the omnipresent feeling that you?re intruding on someone's family pizza night doesn't help. And the smell of that pizza you can't afford hanging in front of your nostrils no matter how late it is? Fuggit. Yes, the service is good, relaxed without being slack, and Joe Squared does a commendable job of booking everything from hot DJs--Devlin and Darko, City Paper fave Action Pat, among plenty more--to folk and indie-rock bands. J² also has a front patio, making for some briefly entertaining MICAling watching before the exhaust from cars coming off the Howard Street bridge sends you back inside. But a Natty Boh will run you $2 here, the most expensive Boh we?ve come across yet (at least in the bars in which we ordered a Boh, which is most). Inexcusable.

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