Things to Do in Schaumburg

At Poplar Creek Bowl, families and friends bowl frames on 32 shiny lanes outfitted with automatic scoring instead of grumpy old math professors. Meanwhile, competitive types can join leagues to play games that could win them prizes such as pizza parties, cash, and scholarship money. In between matches, bowlers can cue up at billiards tables, perfect their emotionless stares during games of video gaming in officials time out, or enjoy a burger and brew at the sports grill.

More than 100 flavors of shisha infuse Milan Hookah Lounge’s softly lit atmosphere with a smoky haze that swirls off of premium tobacco from brands such as Fantasia and Starbuzz. Tobacco-free hydro herbal molasses comes in a slew of sweet flavors, satiating nicotine abstainers and easing the conscience of leafy, tobacco-human hybrids, and refreshing colas and teas cleanse smoke-saturated tongues. Guests kick back in a cozy lounge area with ceiling-suspended lamps, low couches, and sports-broadcasting TVs as occasional live music and belly dancing swell the airwaves with melodious and abdominal vibrations.

The Slaughter’s roots are planted firmly in Chicago soil. Since its founding in 2006, the franchise has consistently opened roles for the city’s gridiron stars, both on the field and in the front office. This Windy City loyalty has been apparent before the team even played its first snap; Slaughter is a nod to the city’s working class and to the old Chicago stockyards.

In 2009, the Slaughter rewarded the Second City with a championship during an undefeated season as part of the Continental Indoor Football League. A year later, the team joined the Indoor Football League, where it remains today, playing all of its home games at Sears Centre Arena. There, frequent promotions help create a party-like atmosphere, and spacious concourses let fans spread out and play their own pickup games using wadded-up slices of deep-dish pizza as the ball.

Visitors to the Elgin Public House step into a cozy interior reinforced by exposed-brick walls. A culinary crew revives weary locals with a menu of hearty pub eats and a beer selection of 87 varieties imported from across Europe and the United States. Chefs use certified-Angus beef for burgers, stuff pork chops full of bleu cheese cornbread and mango chutney, and hand-cut steaks in-house after aging them a minimum of two weeks to ensure optimal flavor and prevent them from prank-calling patrons. A calendar of weekly events keeps things lively with regular offerings such as Wednesday-night trivia, Friday-night fish fries, and daily specials. One Tuesday each month, limited-seating dinner-pairing events offer six-course meals, with each course accompanied by an alcoholic beverage, such as red wine or tequila.

Paintball Explosion began when a group of paintball fanatics decided to make their dreams a reality and set about designing eight different fields of movie-set quality. Located just a 40-minute drive outside of Chicago, the real-life fantasy land they created includes the sci-fi-inspired, concrete environs of Code Black Field as well as the abandoned amusement-park setting of Biohazard Field.

The expansive facility also sports indoor and outdoor speedball fields for adrenaline-fueled fastness. Between matches, gamers can prepare at heated buildings with locker rooms and showers. With an onsite sports bar and grill, Paintball Explosion makes the paintball haven a place where enthusiasts can discuss the forces of velocity, wind resistance, and the physics of splatter.

Each fall, terror descends upon downtown Elgin when Psychosis Haunted House opens its grounds to thrill-seeking visitors. The 20,000-square-foot haunted house stations its actors at unexpected intervals, building suspense and fear so that each monster elicits a scream. For an extra fee, guests can choose to be "kidnapped" and hustled inside, where they wait hidden among the shadows until their friends or the pizza delivery guy finally finds them. Psychosis Haunted House also makes live animals a part of the adventure and donates a portion of its proceeds to the Buddy Foundation, which provides care to stray, abused, and abandoned animals.